Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was sentenced to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty Monday to leaking classified military documents to an online Discord chat group.
Teixeira had initially pleaded not guilty, but admitted to “intentional retention and transmission of national defense information” in a deal with prosecutors to avoid espionage charges. He will also be required to brief officials on information leaked during his work for the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base.
The sentence is harsher than that of other recent leakers. Daniel Hale, a US Air Force intelligence analyst who revealed key details of the Obama administration drone assassination programwas sentenced to 45 months in prison. Reality Winner, a National Security Agency contractor about whom documents were leaked alleged Russian hackinghad five years.
Unlike other historical leakers, Teixeira was not an intentional whistleblower. He initially sent the documents to a noisy Discord server called Thug Shaker Central: the title was a reference to a porn film– with a few dozen players inside. The files went viral after other users reposted them elsewhere.
Teixeira would not be the first person to leak confidential documents to fellow players. So many people posted sensitive weapons data to the Thunder of war video game forum that has become a meme: “0 days since confidential documents leaked.”
But the Discord leak wasn’t just an attempt to impress friends or a prank. Teixeira, who has been described as “against the war” AND “libertarian,” seemed to have some qualms about U.S. foreign policy and wanted to talk about these issues with his friends.
“It wasn’t really about ‘pushing this stuff on teenagers to gain influence,’” Vahki, a pseudonymous member of the chat room where Teixeira posted the documents, he told CNN. “It was more like showing them to friends, so we don’t get shocked by the news cycles. And we know what’s happening to our tax dollars.”
At the time of the indictment, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland declared that Teixeira leaked “information that reasonably could cause exceptionally serious harm to national security if shared… By doing so, he is alleged to have violated U.S. law and endangered our national security.”
However, the leaks also provided valuable insights into US foreign policy, particularly the war in Ukraine. Based on the documents, journalists were able to find out more Councils of the United States on Ukrainian strategy, Ammunition shortage in UkraineRussia’s attempts to do so obtain weapons AND other support from allies of the United StatesAND casualties on both sides Of the war.
The leak embarrassed both friends and enemies of the United States. Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov, shocked by reports that Russia was secretly buying rockets from U.S. ally Egypt, called the documents a “mock.”
Perhaps most embarrassingly, the documents revealed the extent of Washington’s wiretaps on its partners, from South Korea to Israel. Rather than threatening American lives, Teixeira’s the real crime may have been the humiliation of American diplomats.