National Guardsman Jack Teixeira Pleads Not Guilty to Federal Charges

Jack Teixeira, a former National Guardsman accused by federal investigators of leaking sensitive Pentagon documents, pleaded not guilty to all six federal charges in a Massachusetts court on Wednesday.

Teixeira was indicted by the Department of Justice in early June on several counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information related to national defense.

“As laid out in the indictment, Jack Teixeira was entrusted by the United States government with access to classified national defense information — including information that reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security if shared,” attorney general Merrick B. Garland said in an official statement.

“Teixeira is charged with sharing information with users on a social media platform he knew were not entitled to receive it. In doing so, he is alleged to have violated U.S. law and endangered our national security.”

In mid-April, federal agents arrested the 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman at his home in North Dighton. “This is a law enforcement matter,” Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said during a Pentagon news conference at the time, declining to answer specific questions, citing the ongoing investigation.

“This was a deliberate criminal act,” the officer added.

The sensitive leaked documents reportedly consist of briefing slides, including operational data from the ongoing war in Ukraine. The material includes maps of the embattled nation’s air defense systems and even details a furtive attempt by South Korea to deliver hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds to Ukraine.

While some observers have noted that earlier hacks comprised a more comprehensive swath of information — namely, Wikileaks and the Edward Snowden cache — the Teixeira scandal is particularly damaging given its relevance to a hot war.

Some have argued that the 100-plus pages of leaked documents could further endanger American espionage agents currently embedded within the Russian intelligence bureaucracy.

Teixeira was reportedly a member of an online social-media platform popular, Discord, and led a channel known as Thug Shaker Central that bonded over a love of guns and video games.

“He’s fit. He’s strong. He’s armed. He’s trained. Just about everything you can expect out of some sort of crazy movie,” an anonymous member told the Washington Post before Teixeira was arrested.

“I was one of the very few people in the server that was able to understand that these [documents] were legitimate,” the unnamed source told the Post.

“It felt like I was on top of Mount Everest,” the man said. “I felt like I was above everyone else to some degree and that . . . I knew stuff that they didn’t.”