Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guard member accused of leaking highly classified military documents on a social media platform, is expected to plead guilty in a federal case, according to court documents filed Thursday.
Prosecutors asked the judge to schedule a change of plea hearing but did not immediately provide other details. The judge scheduled a hearing Monday in federal court in Boston.
Teixeira previously pleaded not guilty to six counts of knowingly retaining and transmitting defense information. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts declined further comment. Teixeira’s attorney did not immediately return a phone message Thursday.
Teixeira, of North Dayton, Mass., has been in jail since his arrest in April over the leaks, leaving the Biden administration scrambling to assess and contain the damage to the international community and reassure allies that its secrets are safe with the United States of
He is accused of sharing classified military documents about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other sensitive national security topics on Discord, a social media platform popular with online gamers. Investigators believe he led a private chat group called Thug Shaker Central, where enthusiasts shared jokes, talked about their favorite types of guns and discussed wars, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
documents, photos
Authorities said Teixeira joined the Air National Guard in 2019 and began sharing military secrets with other Discord users around January 2023, first printing classified documents and then sharing photos of documents marked secret and top secret. Teixeira serves as a “network transmission systems specialist,” essentially an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks.
Authorities said Teixeira was discovered on April 6, the day New York Times First published a story about a document leak – search for the word “leaked” in classified systems. The FBI said it had reason to believe Teixeira was trying to find information related to an investigation into who was responsible for the leak.
Prosecutors say he continued to leak government secrets even after his superiors warned him about mishandling and improperly viewing classified information. After being warned by his superiors, he again viewed information unrelated to his primary duties, according to an internal Air National Guard memo filed in court.
Authorities have provided no details about the alleged possible motive, but accounts from people in the private online chat group where the documents were disclosed describe Teixeira’s motivation more as bravado than ideology.
Prosecutors urged the judge to keep Teixeira jailed while the case proceeds, in part because of an array of weapons found in his home and his history of disturbing comments online. They included a social media post saying he wanted to kill “a lot of people” if he had his way because it would “weed out the weak-minded.”
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani denied Teixeira’s request for release last year, saying “no set of release conditions can reasonably ensure the safety of the community or prevent the destruction of evidence.”
In urging their client’s release, Teixeira’s lawyers pointed to pretrial releases in cases involving former President Donald Trump and other high-profile classified documents. Teixeira’s lawyers noted that prosecutors were not seeking to detain Trump or his co-defendant Walter Nota, although they said the former president and his valet “possessed extraordinary means to escape the United States.”
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