Suspected whistleblower, Jack Teixeira, 21, was charged with leaking confidential documents from the Pentagon. The U.S. Airman First Class, who worked as an IT specialist in the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts National Guard, faces up to 15 years in federal prison.
Teixeira, who held a “top secret” security clearance since 2021, is charged with “unauthorized transmission of intelligence information and the unauthorized removal of classified documents,” Causes.com reported, which comes with a sentence of 10 years in prison for the first charge, and up to five years for the second charge.
The leaked documents “revealed U.S. assessments of the war in Ukraine as well as sensitive secrets about American allies,” the BBC reported. The classified documents first appeared in a Discord chat room, which would discuss geopolitical affairs and war, in which Teixeira was an administrator. The leaked documents ranged from paragraphs of text to actual photographs of classified documents. When the leaked classified documents circulated on Twitter, 4chan, and Telegram, Pentagon officials realized the leak on April 6.
Teixeira was arrested on Thursday by FBI agents at his home in Massachusetts and remains in custody.
President Biden praised law enforcement involved in the case for their “rapid action” to investigate and find the source of the leaks, the BBC reported.
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