A judge ruled Friday that the 21-year-old accused of leaking classified documents from the military will be kept in jail until his trial.
Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira has been accused of leaking classified information onto a Discord Server in one of the most significant military leaks of recent years.
The prosecution argued that Teixiera is a continuing security threat and should be detained while he waits for his trial. In court filings, Teixiera was accused of being reprimanded twice for accessing classified data that had nothing to do with his job.
In September and October of 2022, his supervisors reportedly warned him for taking notes and “deep diving” into classified intelligence. The prosecution says that Teixiera did not stop despite the warnings.
This has led to questions as to why he was still granted top-secret clearance. Pentagon responded by citing several investigations into the matter.
Sabrina Singh, Deputy Pentagon spokesperson said: “As you mentioned there were reports filed in his unit by others citing these violations. So what didn’t occur when that is what the report will reveal.”
Teixiera then boasted a few months later in December about sharing even more military secrets via Discord. He wrote: “I don’t care what people say, I can share or not. The information I provide here is less than half of what’s out there.”
Teixeira has been accused of revealing battlefield locations that were in real-time during the Ukraine conflict, which could have been used by Russia. These documents included information about U.S. spies, which caused some allies to be upset.
Prosecutors also argue Teixiera is violent, having discovered a cache of weapons in his room and that he once posted online about wanting to kill people in a random shooting.
Teixiera’s lawyers argued that he should be freed, citing that he surrendered to authorities calmly and that, even though he was aware that investigators were searching for him, he did not flee.
