Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, has been charged with the unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information, as well as the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. Teixeira is accused of publishing top-secret Pentagon documents on social media, including sensitive details about the war in Ukraine and intelligence agency eavesdropping on world leaders.
Teixeira’s initial court appearance was at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Friday. The investigation began after a small number of classified documents surfaced on Twitter and Telegram last week.
According to charging documents, Teixeira worked in the 102nd Intelligence Wing based at Otis Air Force Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, since May 2022. He was granted a “top secret security clearance” in 2021, meaning he would have signed a “lifetime binding non-disclosure agreement” acknowledging that leaking protected information could result in criminal charges, according to the federal complaint.
Teixeira’s unit provides worldwide intelligence for combat support and homeland security. He worked as a cyber transport systems journeyman for the National Guard since February.
Teixeira allegedly began releasing classified information in “paragraphs of text” on an undisclosed social media platform as early as December 2022. He posted the documents in a private channel on a social media platform, though it was not specifically identified in the charging documents. However, according to posts from his friends on social media viewed by NPR, Teixeira posted the classified documents in a group chat on the platform Discord.
Teixeira allegedly disclosed classified information for the past five months. Initially, the purpose of divulging secret information was to “discuss geopolitical affairs and current and historical wars,” the federal complaint said. But beginning in January, the online user began posting photographs of what appeared to be official U.S. government documents with classification markings. Among the documents photographed was the status of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including troop movements on a particular date.
Teixeira’s online friends were fascinated by Orthodox Catholicism, guns, as well as racist and vile memes. Meanwhile, the founder of the channel used a profile picture of Terry Davis, a computer programmer who suffered from schizophrenia and spoke about hearing the voice of God.
Teixeira posted the documents using a social media account that he signed up for using his real name and credit card information, according to the charging documents.
Following the recent leak, the Pentagon said it is reevaluating who gets access to this kind of classified information. This is not the first time that a person with an IT background has been suspected of leaking classified information. Edward Snowden, who released a trove of documents from the National Security Agency in 2013, was a federal contractor and systems administrator in Hawaii at the time.
