A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira in connection with one of the most serious leaks of classified military intelligence in recent memory.
Teixeira faces charges of unlawful disclosure of classified defense information, according to CBS News. He is currently in custody and will remain in prison until his trial.
He allegedly posted hundreds of pages of sensitive documents on a Discord server over several months. Discord is an online group messaging application that caters to gamers. Much of the material he posted related to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"As laid out in the indictment, Jack Teixeira was entrusted by the United States government with access to classified national defense information — including information that reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security if shared," Attorney General Merrick Garland said of the matter. "Teixeira is charged with sharing information with users on a social media platform he knew were not entitled to receive it. In doing so, he is alleged to have violated U.S. law and endangered our national security."
His friends have insisted Teixeira did not act maliciously and merely sought to educate his friends on the state of the conflict. Prior to his arrest, Teixeira received multiple warnings about his handling of classified materials and his superiors received notification that he had ignored such warnings and continued accessing materials.
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