US Air Force National Guard member Jack Teixeira, aged 21, has been arrested for leaking classified documents. The Espionage Act will be used to charge him, which makes it illegal to transmit classified defence information.
Teixeira was allegedly the leader of an online gaming chat group where the files were leaked. The documents revealed sensitive intelligence about the war in Ukraine and other countries worldwide.
He is a member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard and was based at Otis Air National Guard Base in western Cape Cod. He is expected to make his first court appearance in Boston on Friday.
About the documents leak
At least 50 but perhaps more than 100 classified documents were posted on Discord, a social media platform popular with gamers. The documents include a range of intelligence assessments about the war in Ukraine, but also sensitive intelligence about countries around the world, including US allies. Pentagon officials are continuing to work to "understand the scope, scale and impact of these leaks".
What did the investigation bring forward?
The leaks initially appeared in a Discord chat room including roughly two dozen members who swapped "memes, offensive jokes and idle chitchat" and prayed and watched movies together. The members included people from Russia and Ukraine and a number of other countries in Europe, Asia and South America.
At first, the leaks were kept inside the chatroom, but in early March members began posting them on other Discord servers, including ones dedicated to the game Minecraft and a Filipino YouTuber. From there they were posted on the fringe message board 4chan and on the Telegram chat app, particularly on pro-Russia channels. In some cases, they were altered to increase Ukrainian casualty counts.
Teixeira's arrest
Aerial footage showed officers making an arrest at Teixeira's family home on Thursday. It happened in Dighton, a town of 8,000 people about an hour to the south of Boston. Footage of the arrest shows a young man, believed to be Teixeira, walking backward towards armed FBI officers with his hands raised before he is handcuffed and led to a vehicle. Roads in the area were blocked by police officers while the arrest was taking place.
US officials have described the leak as a "deliberate criminal act." When asked how such a young airman had access to classified defence documents, a defence department spokesman said that across the US military, personnel are entrusted "with a lot of responsibility at a very early age".
Reaction to the leak and arrest
The House Intelligence Committee chairman, Republican congressman Mike Turner, vowed to "examine why this happened, why it went unnoticed for weeks, and how to prevent future leaks".
Eddy Souza, a 22-year-old man who claims he attended high school with Mr Teixeira, told Reuters he was surprised that his former classmate had been identified as the suspect in the leaks. "He's a good kid, not a troublemaker, just a quiet guy," Mr Souza said. "It sounds like it was a stupid kid's mistake."
US President Joe Biden was briefed about Mr Teixeira's arrest while on a trip to Ireland, White House officials have confirmed.
