Arrests Air Force guardsman 21 year old leaked documents

FBI arrests 21-year-old Air Force youth in connection with Pentagon leak

On Thursday, the FBI arrested a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard in connection with the leak of classified documents posted online, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced.

Jack Teixeira, 21, was arrested following a rapid US government manhunt to find the identity of the leaker who posted classified documents on a social networking platform popular with gamers.

Teixeira was arrested in Massachusetts without incident, Garland said, and will be brought before federal court there. “The investigation is ongoing. We will share more information at the appropriate time,” the attorney general said, declining to answer a question.

Teixeira will appear first in court on Friday in Boston, according to the US attorney’s office there.

The FBI said in a statement that it had arrested Teixeira “at a residence in North Dighton, Massachusetts, for alleged involvement in the leaking of classified US government and military documents.” Although a large number of people had access to the documents, investigators targeted a few for a closer investigation thanks to the forensic trail left behind by the person who posted the document.

For at least a few days before his arrest by the FBI on Thursday, Teixeira was under surveillance, according to a US government source familiar with the case.

Earlier on Thursday, President Joe Biden appeared to hint that the US government was about to identify the leaker. Biden was later informed of his arrest in the time between his speech to Congress and his departure for a dinner of honor at Dublin Castle, according to a US official. He stayed at the hotel for about 90 minutes between these two events. Officials said Biden has been regularly informed about the investigation, as well as efforts by his senior officials to cooperate with allies who have been identified in or affected by the incident. content of the leaked information, according to one of the officials. Behind the police, this has become a notable fact during Biden’s important and personal overseas trip, an official admitted.

“The agency is continuing to conduct authorized law enforcement operations at the residence,” the FBI said. “Since last weekend, the FBI has been actively pursuing leads, and today’s arrest demonstrates our unwavering commitment to identifying, pursuing, and bringing to justice those responsible.” betray the trust of the country and put national security in jeopardy.”

The leaked documents posted on social media, some of which were accessed by CNN, include detailed intelligence assessments of both allies and enemies, including the war situation in Ukraine and those challenges that Kyiv and Moscow face as the war seems to be at a stalemate.

Multiple US officials said they believed Teixeira was the leader of the group where a trove of classified documents was posted.

The Air Force has released details on the career of Teixeira, a top Captain.

Teixeira is a pilot and has joined the Massachusetts Air National Guard, according to information in his file released by the Air Force on Thursday. He joined the service in September 2019, his official title is Cyber Transport Systems operator. The Air Force said the Network Transport Systems specialists were responsible for ensuring the service’s “widespread, global communications network” was “operating normally”.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post first reported that the leaker worked at a military base and had posted sensitive national security secrets in a group of online acquaintances. The leaker described in the Post article is a lonely young man who loves guns and is a member of a chat room of about two dozen people on Discord – a social media platform popular with gamers. – shares a passion for guns and military equipment, according to a friend of the alleged leaker Post interviewed, who is also a member of the group.

Some of Teixeira’s old friends from high school told CNN on Thursday that he has a passion for the military, guns and war. He sometimes wears camouflage to school, carries a “dictionary as big as a gun book” and behaves in a way that upset some of his classmates.

Brooke Cleathero, a middle and high school classmate with Teixeira, said: “A lot of people were wary of him. He was a more loner and his fascination with war and guns made him difficult. bear with many people.”

John Powell, who also studied with Teixeira in middle and high school, said he recalls Teixeira as an agreeable and quiet child who was sometimes bullied. He doesn’t have many friends, he said. According to public records, Teixeira grew up in a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island. He attended Dighton-Rehoboth High School, which he graduated in 2020, according to the area’s superintendent.

The Pentagon has begun limiting the number of people in the government who have access to highly classified daily intelligence briefings in the wake of the leak.

Some U.S. officials formerly entitled to daily briefing documents have stopped receiving them in recent days, sources close to the matter told CNN, as the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff continued. narrow the distribution list.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, composed of the highest-ranking Defense Department leaders advising the president, began checking its distribution list shortly after learning of the leak of classified documents – including Many documents show signs that they were created by General Staff intelligence, also known as J2.

The Pentagon imposed limits on who had access to top military secrets following the leak. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday that he had asked the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to review his right to access intelligence, following the arrest of the Air National Guard.