The U.S. charged an Air National Guardsman with unauthorized transmission and retention of classified material in connection with a massive leak that exposed a variety of intelligence secrets, including maps, intelligence updates and an assessment of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Jack Teixeira, 21, made his initial court appearance Friday in Boston federal court after being arrested for allegedly accessing and disseminating classified national defense information. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted of the charges. Teixeira, who was refused bail, didn’t enter a plea and was given a public defender. He’s scheduled for another hearing in Boston on Wednesday.
The leak of dozens of pages of documents has been described as one of the most damaging and embarrassing intelligence disclosures in a decade. The documents were shared among a small group on the Discord text and video chat app before being picked up and circulated more broadly on the Telegram messaging service, where international news organizations first became aware of them.
While President Joe Biden sought to downplay the severity of the leak, experts and former officials said it was a massive exposure that highlighted not only up-to-the-minute assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, but also how the U.S. collects intelligence around the world.
Teixeira wore beige jail scrubs and showed no emotion as the judge read out the charges. His parents were sitting in the front row. They exchanged a brief greeting as he was handcuffed and led away.
According to an FBI affidavit released Friday, Teixeira unlawfully retained and disseminated material classified at the TS//SCI level, which is the highest classification level.
He allegedly began posting text of classified information in a chat room on the Discord social media website in December, which was then followed by photos of classified information including “a document that described the status of the Russia Ukraine conflict, including troop movements, on a particular date,” according to the affidavit.
Teixeira told a chat room user “that he had become concerned that he may be discovered making the transcriptions of text in the workplace, so he began taking the documents to his residence and photographing them,” according to the affidavit.
The Discord social media site, which was not identified by name in the affidavit, provided the FBI with records after being ordered to do so by a court.
The case is US v. Teixeira, 23-mj-04293, US District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).
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(With assistance from Patricia Hurtado.)
