A Massachusetts federal grand jury formally returned its indictments against Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman who allegedly leaked classified Pentagon documents. According to the grand jury indictment, there are six counts of possession and distribution of classified National Defense material against Teixeira in the leaks case.
Teixeira was arrested in April this year after the investigation led to him. The 21-year-old allegedly shared secret information via Discord, an internet messaging application popular amongst gamers and various internet subcultures.
The charges against Teixeira are serious. Each is punishable by prison sentences of up to 10 years, in addition to heavy fines estimated at $250,000. The leak is considered to be the largest in the history of the Department of Defense since Wikileaks. The disclosed reports essentially contained information and findings available to the federal government about Russia and China.
Teixeira has been detained since then and the courts have refused to release him on parole, despite his family's pleas. The prosecutor linked Teixeira to extreme right-wing groups, and his potential access to firearms makes him ineligible for release.
Teixeira's superiors did not take action
Jack Teixeira worked at the 102nd Military Intelligence Wing, an Air National Guard unit dedicated to documenting information and based in Mashphee. There, Jack Teixeira carried out intelligence work, and worked to obtain a series of diplomas and qualifications related to the handling of confidential information.
During his time at the Otis military base, Teixeira was reprimanded on several occasions by his superiors after he was discovered handling information that did not correspond to him, in addition to being caught taking notes. Teixeira had a security pass, as did other colleagues engaged in the same work. Despite the reprimands, his managers took no action against him, and even granted him the qualifications corresponding to his intelligence training.
In parallel to his work, Teixeira spent much of his free time chatting on various Discord channels related to different online games. In one of them, motivated by his online friends, Teixeira shared several classified reports that progressively appeared on Russian Telegram channels and in U.S. media.
