MA Air National Guardsman Teixeira Pleads Not Guilty To Leaking Classified Documents

WORCESTER, MA — Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking classified military documents, pleaded not guilty to charges against him on Wednesday.

Teixeira, 21, of Dighton, was recently indicted on charges that, while stationed at Joint Base Cape Cod, he leaked highly classified national defense information to other users on the social media site Discord.

He was arrested at his home in Dighton and last week a grand jury indicted him on six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information relating to the national defense.

Teixeira has been in custody in Plymouth since his April arrest.

"The unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified information jeopardizes our nation’s security. Individuals granted access to classified materials have a fundamental duty to safeguard the information for the safety of the United States, our active service members, its citizens and its allies," acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy said in a news release.

"We are committed to ensuring that those entrusted with sensitive national security information adhere to the law."

Teixeira, according to officials, has held a Top-Secret security clearance since 2021. Around January of 2022, officials said he used that clearance to share information labeled as "secret" or "top secret" to a gaming chat group he is believed to be the leader of.

That chat consists of up to 30 young men and teenagers where he distributed leaked documents revealing details of the U.S. spying on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, secret assessments of Ukraine’s combat power and intelligence gathering on America’s allies.

Prosecutors said that the publication of "top secret" information, by definition, "reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security" of the United States.

Teixeira could faces up to 10 years on the unauthorized retention and transmission charge, and up to 10 years on the retention and removal of classified documents charge.

Though officials have filed charges against Teixeira in this case, there are other concerning factors about his online behavior.

Prosecutors say Teixeira kept an arsenal of weapons in his bedroom at his home with his mother and stepfather in North Dighton. He also made regular comments about violence and murder on social media, including musings about wanting to “kill a [expletive] ton of people” because it would be "culling the weak-minded."

He also planned to convert a minivan into an "assassination van," prosecutors said.

With additional reporting from Neal McNamara and Cailin Loesch.