Former Massachusetts Air National Guard Airman Jack Teixeira, who was part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday to enter a plea of guilty to charges of leaking U.S. classified documents onto Discord, a chat and streaming service generally used by gamers.
The deal was struck with Justice Department investigators after his attorneys spent several months reviewing the evidence against the former Airman.
Teixeira was accused of using his top-secret security clearance to access classified government computer networks on an Air Force base in Cape Cod, where he worked with a unit providing intelligence support to the military. A Washington Post investigation revealed that, while Teixeira was serving in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, he shared hundreds of classified documents as well as his own summaries of classified reports on Discord.
Teixeira had pleaded not guilty after his arrest last April. His lawyers spent the past several months reviewing the evidence, including classified documents, that prosecutors intended to use at trial.
Teixeira faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each count. Justice Department and Teixeira’s defense attorneys, as part of the plea deal, have agreed to a sentencing range of 11-16 years in prison. In a press conference on Monday, Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen said:
“For those of us who have spent our careers seeing firsthand the sacrifice and dedication of our intelligence community and our national security professionals and their efforts to keep the American people safe, it has been shocking, shocking to witness the public disclosures that resulted from Mr. Teixeira’s crimes”
See Related: Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira Indicted by Fed. Grand Jury on Classified Docs Charges
15 Air National Guard Members Disciplined Following Investigation Into Accused Leaker Jack Teixeira
At this juncture, it is impossible to know the extent of the leaks.
It’s unclear whether investigators were able to fully re-create the extent of what Teixeira shared online. Before his arrest, Teixeira took advantage of Discord’s data retention policies to cover his tracks. He also deleted an entire server, called Thug Shaker Central, where The Post found that Teixeira had been sharing classified material with a group of mostly teenage boys in an attempt to impress them.
Jack Teixeira was also the subject of concern among his co-workers, some of whom thought he may be threatening to carry out a mass shooting; he was denied a firearms license but managed, amazingly, to get a security clearance despite these threats.
Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member charged with leaking classified U.S. intelligence documents on a gaming platform, alarmed fellow members of his unit, who worried that the young computer technician might, in the words of one, “shoot up the place” after he was warned to stop looking at classified information that had nothing to do with his job, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
See Related: Jack Teixeira Was Denied a Gun License After Making Threats Against His School, but Somehow Got Intel Clearance
Teixeira’s motivation for taking the classified information and disseminating it is unclear. What’s worse, the U.S. Air Force Inspector General determined that other unit members “intentionally failed to report the full details” of Teixeira’s activities; at one point Teixeira was confronted about hand-written notes containing classified information, but there was no follow-up to determine if the notes had been destroyed.
In a statement on Monday, Teixeira’s family cited a “lackadaisical work atmosphere, lack of adequate training and oversight, combined with a complete disregard for policy and procedure ‘directly and indirectly contributed’ to what happened.”
As a former holder of a Top Secret clearance myself, while working on the staff of the Command Surgeon, U.S. Army, Europe (USAEUR) I can attest that in a proper organization, classified materials are very tightly controlled; access is strictly limited and supervised, and classified documents are not to be removed from the secure location; at that time (1996-1997) the penalties described in classified-documents briefings were harsh.
At this point, no sentencing date has been set. RedState will continue to monitor this case and update you as events warrant.
