Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, is accused of leaking classified military documents on social media. The documents were leaked on a social media platform.
Teixeira was indicted on charges of mishandling secrets and could face up to 60 years in prison. The FBI identified Teixeira using billing records from a social media platform and interviews with another user.
Reports indicate that Teixeira was motivated by a desire to impress friends he made on Discord. The US Air Force has disciplined 15 airmen in connection with the leak.
Prosecutors say Teixeira, who was 21 at the time of his arrest in June, leaked classified documents to a group of gamers on the messaging app Discord. The classified material included highly sensitive U.S. military assessments, including on the war in Ukraine.
The leak is considered the most serious U.S. national security breach since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010.
“The actions ranged from relieving personnel from their positions, including command positions, to non-judicial punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” an Air Force statement said.
Colonel Sean Riley, commander of 102nd Intelligence Wing to which Teixeira belonged, was relieved of command.
An Air Force Inspector General report into the incident found that some member of Teixeria’s unit and leadership “had information about as many as four separate instances of his questionable activity.”
A smaller number of people had a more complete picture of his intellegence-seeking behavior and “intentionally failed to report the full details of these security concerns/incidents.”
“Had any of these members come forward, security officials would likely have facilitated restricting systems/facility access and alerted the appropriate authorities, reducing the length and depth of the unauthorized and unlawful disclosures by several months,” the report said.
The Air Force statement accompanying the report added that the investigation did not find evidence that Teixeria’s chain of command were aware of his alleged disclosures.
