U.S.
US intelligence agencies review evidence in Discord leak case
By
The Washington Post July 24, 2023
Shane Harris and Devlin Barrett
The Washington Post July 24, 2023
This photo illustration created on Apr. 13, 2023, shows National Guardsman Jack Teixeira reflected in an image of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. He is suspected of being behind a major leak of sensitive U.S. government secrets — including about the Ukraine war. (Stefani Reynolds, AFP via Getty Images/TNS)
BOSTON — Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guard member charged with sharing hundreds of classified documents with friends online, is unlikely to stand trial for several months owing to what federal prosecutors described Monday as the large amount of sensitive information related to the case.
A Justice Department attorney told a judge in federal court in Boston that the documents are held by "a number of other government agencies," each of which must be consulted before authorities can hand over the material to Teixeira's attorneys, a laborious and usually slow process that is typical for cases featuring classified information.
The materials Teixeira is alleged to have leaked pertain to operations by numerous intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency.
"The government is working as expeditiously as possible," Christina A. Clark, the trial attorney, told district court Judge Indira Talwani, who agreed to reconvene for a status update in two months.
Teixeira did not appear in the courtroom, but his father, mother and stepfather were present. All three declined to comment on the case.
The hearing comes after Teixeira pleaded not guilty last month to a six-count indictment accusing him of illegal retention and transmission of national defense information in a leak case that raised alarms about the government's ability to keep sensitive military secrets. He faces years in prison.
A 21-year-old from North Dighton, Mass., Teixeira has been in jail since his April arrest after FBI agents traced to him photos posted online of classified documents. Authorities say he worked as an IT professional at a military base in Cape Cod, Mass., and abused his top secret clearance by illegally sharing U.S. intelligence assessments and other sensitive information on Discord, a social media platform popular with video game players.
Dozens of highly classified documents have been leaked online, revealing sensitive information intended for senior military and intelligence leaders. In an exclusive investigation, The Washington Post also reviewed scores of additional secret documents Teixeira is said to have shared with friends, though most of those materials have not been made public.
Teixeira is accused of violating the same section of the Espionage Act that former president Donald Trump is charged with violating, among other crimes, for allegedly stashing classified documents at his post-presidency home in Florida.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case, and the two criminal matters have prompted numerous comparisons about the respective treatment of the once senior-most official in government and one of the most junior members of the military.
Teixeira's attorneys have argued that the Justice Department has applied an uneven hand to the two cases, and their client should not stay in jail awaiting trial since the far wealthier Trump is not being held in custody.
The indictment alleges Teixeira disclosed information based on "sensitive U.S. intelligence, gathered through classified sources and methods."
The descriptions of documents Teixeira allegedly shared are consistent with those obtained by The Post that friends of Teixeira said he posted on Discord, with what he believed was a trusted circle of associates who would not share the information more broadly. Those friends said in recent interviews that Teixeira was motivated by a desire to keep them informed about the war in Ukraine and to reveal to them information not generally available to the public.
A friend who said he received the documents from Teixeira on Discord said the airman understood that the information was classified and that he was not supposed to share it with people who lacked a security clearance.
"He knew what he was doing when he posted these documents, of course. These weren't accidental leaks of any kind," the friend said. He added that Teixeira never intended for the information to be widely known and was not trying to expose potential wrongdoing by the government. Rather, he seemed motivated by a desire to demonstrate his superior knowledge of current events, based on his access to classified information.
The Washington Post's Barrett reported from Washington.