Jack Teixeirathe young man suspected of being behind one of the largest Leaks of Pentagon documents in the last decade, was indicted for two crimes this Friday when appearing before the magistrate judge of the District Court of Massachusetts, David Hennessy.
Jack Teixeira was arrested Thursday following a week-long investigation into one of the most damaging leaks of confidential information since Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosure of National Security Agency documents.
The charges against you
In a brief hearing in federal court in Boston, the young man was charged with “unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information”as well as “theft and unauthorized retention of documents or classified material”.
Teixeira appeared before a Massachusetts federal court judge in Boston at 10:00 am local time. He was not required to plead guilty and was detained pending a new hearing scheduled for next Wednesday.
Teixeira is suspected of publish a series of secret Pentagon documents, some dated at the beginning of March, in a private chat group on the social network Discord.
(Also read: Racist and fond of weapons, this would be the author of the Pentagon leak)
The leak of secret documents revealed Washington’s concern about weaknesses in Ukraine’s military and pointed out that the United States is spying on its allies, including Israel and South Korea.
One of the documents, in fact, contained information on the “state of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including the movement of troops on a particular date.”
The newspaper The New York Times reported that Teixeira was the leader of a group called Thug Shaker Central. and reportedly published the documents under the moniker “OG”.
He first transcribed the contents of the classified documents to share with the group, but then photographed them and told other members not to share them, according to the report. Washington Post.
(Also: Why do secret US files cast doubt on the Ukrainian counteroffensive?)
Some of the documents later appeared on other internet sites, including Twitter, 4Chan and Telegram.
If found guilty, He could face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
In an affidavit presented to the court by FBI investigators, it is stated that Teixeira had had an accreditation since 2022 that authorized him to access material marked as top secret.
Who is Alex Teixeira?
Investigators have yet to provide any indication of Teixeira’s motive for releasing the documents.
The young man enlisted in the Air National Guard in September 2019 and it is a information technology specialist and communications who achieved the rank of Airman First Class, the third lowest for enlisted Air Force personnel.
(Also read: This is how the United States would be ‘hacking’ Russia and other countries in the world)
Teixeira’s friends described him to the newspaper The Washington Post as a devout Catholic and a libertarian interested in guns.
The newspaper reported that he comes from a family with decades of military service. His father spent 34 years in the same military unit as his son, while Teixeira’s mother worked for nonprofit organizations that support veterans.
🇺🇸 | URGENT: The FBI has arrested classified leaker Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old U.S. Army Air National Guardsman from Massachusetts who shared the materials on Discord. pic.twitter.com/G2BisB58Bj
– Alert News 24 (@AlertaNews24) April 13, 2023
According to The New York Times, the young man was not motivated by his disagreement with the actions of the US government, as has been the case with previous leaks (WikiLeaks, the Pentagon Papers), and although they reveal sensitive information about the war in Ukraine, it does not appear that Teixeira took part in the conflict.
Members of the Discord group where the suspect allegedly leaked the documents told the newspaper that the posts were “purely informational.”
However, the leaks show compromising details of the Ukrainian strategy, and also shed light on the spying of the United States on its own allies, such as South Korea or Israel.
The forum was dedicated to discussing video games and firearms, and racist “memes” were frequently shared on it, according to US media.
(It may interest you: Does the US spy on the Ukrainian military and politicians? This is what leaked documents say)
Apparently, Teixeria took home paper documents from the military base where he worked and photographed them. Later she shared these photographs in the virtual group, in which between 20 and 30 people participate, some teenagers.
His mother, talking to The New York Timesconfirmed that the young man had been working the night shift at a Cape Cod base, and had recently changed his phone number.
In videos that The Washington Post has had access to, the boy is seen practicing shooting with a rifle while shouting racist and anti-Semitic insults. When the FBI searched Teixeira’s home they found several firearms.
(Keep reading: Pentagon Investigates Leak of Secret Ukraine War Files)
Doubts in the case
The case has raised questions about how a young man who had been working for the Pentagon for a short time could have access to such sensitive material.
The Pentagon considers the leak of the documents a “deliberate criminal act,” but has not explained how a young man who has been in the Massachusetts National Guard for just over three years was able to access classified information that compromises America’s allies. and they give details about the plans of the United States and NATO to reinforce the anti-Russian offensive in Ukraine.
The US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, reported that he ordered a review of the “intelligence control, accountability and access procedures” within the Pentagon in order to “prevent this type of incident from happening again.”
Teixeira’s arrest on Thursday at his home in the town of North Dighton, in southern Massachusetts, was broadcast live on US television networks.
Aerial footage from the operation showed the suspect, dressed in red shorts and a T-shirt, with his hands behind his head, slowly backing toward the heavily armed camouflage-clad troops who detained him.
ANGIE RUIZ
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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