On Friday, Air Force National Guard airman Jack Teixeira was charged with two counts under the Espionage Act, alleging his unlawful gathering and unauthorized removal of top-secret military documents. These documents spread widely online after Teixeira allegedly spent months leaking classified information on a private Discord server. At his first court appearance, Teixeira was not required to enter a plea, but he is due back in court Wednesday, NBC News reported.
If he’s eventually found guilty, Teixeira could face up to 10 years in prison for each count, according to an affidavit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s special agent Patrick Lueckenhoff. His affidavit did not detail all the information that the FBI has gathered on Teixeira, but Lueckenhoff said that it shared enough information to demonstrate “sufficient probable cause for Teixeira’s arrest.”
Since Teixeira’s arrest, many have wondered how the FBI tracked him down. Lueckenhoff’s affidavit provides a timeline for the FBI’s manhunt and confirms that Discord played a major role in his arrest.
On April 10, the FBI interviewed one of the Discord users on the now-deleted server where Teixeira had served as an administrator. That Discord user disclosed key information that assisted the FBI, including confirming that the Discord admin’s real name was Jack, that he seemed to live in Massachusetts, and that he claimed to serve in the Air National Guard.
The FBI then requested assistance directly from Discord, which on Friday confirmed it had been cooperating with the investigation. Lueckenhoff’s affidavit showed that on April 12, Discord “provided the FBI with records pursuant to legal process.” These records included account and subscriber information, revealing that the Discord admin’s name was “Jack Teixeira” and that his billing address was “a specific residence in North Dighton, Massachusetts.”
On April 13, the same Discord user who had previously spoken to the FBI picked Teixeira out from a lineup of photos from the Registry of Motor Vehicles. That day, the FBI arrested Teixeira, and Discord released a statement to Ars, explaining that Teixeira’s alleged activity was prohibited on the platform.
“We are aware that law enforcement officials have arrested the individual accused of illegally posting classified material on our platform,” Discord’s spokesperson said. “We have cooperated with officials and remain committed to doing so as this investigation continues.”
Discord said that its terms of service “expressly prohibit” any illegal or criminal activity on the platform, “which includes the sharing of documents on Discord that may be verifiably classified.” The platform also confirmed that other Discord users were affected. Discord apparently has “banned users involved with the original distribution of the materials, deleted content,” and “issued warnings to users who continue to share the materials in question.”
Identifying classified materials unlawfully shared on its platform is not a straightforward process for Discord, though. In a blog, Discord noted that “only authorized government personnel can determine whether a document is classified, unclassified, or even authentic. And currently, there is no structured process for the government to communicate their determinations to platforms like Discord.”
Discord’s private channels are a major draw for some users. On Teixeira’s private server, which was called “Thug Shaker Central,” roughly 25 members formed the community specifically to have a private place to heatedly discuss guns, attempt to track covert military operations, and swap memes described by outlets like Business Insider and The Washington Post as racist and antisemitic. Discord’s statement suggested that it could not be expected to preserve privacy on servers found to be promoting irresponsible online behavior.
“While Discord places a premium on the privacy of our users, we believe that our platform best serves the needs of all when we collectively engage in responsible online behavior,” Discord’s spokesperson said.
Teixeira used security clearance to monitor FBI
Before Teixeira’s arrest, there was much speculation over how he got access to the classified documents that he allegedly shared on Discord. Lueckenhoff’s affidavit confirmed that Teixeira had been granted top-secret security clearance in 2021, when the low-level computer tech was 19 years old.
Business Insider reported that more than 2 million people have similar security clearance to access confidential military documents. Lueckenhoff said that ensuring national security depends on each individual granted access signing “a lifetime binding non-disclosure agreement,” acknowledging “that the unauthorized disclosure of protected information could result in criminal charges.”
In addition to allegedly gathering and removing confidential documents from the Massachusetts base where Teixeira was stationed, Lueckenhoff said that a separate government agency found that Teixeira had allegedly used his access to find out what the feds knew about him in connection to the document leaks. His affidavit confirmed that a separate government agency found that Teixeira had searched “classified intelligence reporting for the word ‘leak’” about a week before his arrest.
While Esquire reported that some conservative influencers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have suggested that Teixeira is acting as a whistleblower—allegedly leaking documents to draw attention to the Biden administration’s supposed war crimes in Ukraine—Teixeira has not publicly commented on his arrest or any potential motivations. His family has also not offered any statements since his arrest, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Dubbing Teixeira a “keyboard warrior” who was “little more than a child” trying to impress other young men by allegedly posting top-secret documents on his Discord server, Business Insider disagreed with Greene’s stance, reporting that Teixeira seemingly “did it not for country, but for clout.” That report suggested that the government could tighten up national security by investigating who trained Teixeira and then finding out how many others granted security clearance were trained and screened by the same military official. Similarly, Teixeira’s supervisor should be questioned, Insider suggested.
Preventing future leaks remains a concern
Teixeira’s obsession with the military began well before he enlisted, The New York Times reported. The airman grew up in a small, “reliably conservative” Massachusetts town, where his family had “strong military ties.” His stepfather is a retired master sergeant who served in the same Air Force intelligence unit where Teixeira ended up serving, and his stepbrother is also in the Air Force, the Times reported.
Some of Teixeira’s former classmates told the Times that his seeming obsession with guns and the military was “unnerving.” Others told NBC News that he was “willing” to do “crazy stuff” in class to get attention. That sometimes included faking seizures, which freaked out “half the class” but was normalized by the other half, who sources said dismissed Teixeira’s attention-seeking behavior by saying, “Yeah, that’s Jack.”
While the FBI continues investigating Teixeira’s alleged role in the Pentagon leaks, US Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) told MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports” that he will be meeting with Pentagon officials next week to find out how they plan to prevent document leaks in the future.
The Times noted that from his post near the Rhode Island border, Teixeira had “broad access” to “a global network of classified material from the military and 17 other American intelligence agencies.”
Teixeira’s mother, Dawn, told The New York Times that Teixeira often worked nights helping to maintain secure networks at Otis Air National Guard Base in Sandwich, Massachusetts. The FBI’s affidavit said that at first, Teixeira would allegedly transcribe confidential information while he was on the job, but fearing he would be discovered in his workplace, he allegedly began printing documents and bringing them home to photograph and upload them to Discord. Insider’s report wondered why there was seemingly no one monitoring Teixeira’s document searches or alleged printer activity. Krishnamoorthi echoed this criticism on MSNBC.
“We spend billions and billions of dollars collecting these secrets and preserving these secrets and for a 21-year-old to be able access them, print them out, and then share them with a bunch of his teenage friends is just mystifying,” Krishnamoorthi told MSNBC.
Although many have suggested that the military should crack down on who gets top-level security clearance, a retired Air Force intelligence analyst, Bennett Miller, told the Times that restricting access could be “more dangerous” than allowing low-level airmen like Teixeira to access confidential information in “milliseconds.” Miller suggested that restricting the flow of information could lead to intelligence failures that trigger other national security risks.
“That’s what happened before 9/11,” Miller told The Times. “We were too locked down and couldn’t put together the pieces of the puzzle. As we look for a fix, we have to make sure we don’t make the same mistake.”
