Washington, (EFE).- Jack Teixeira, the young man who was behind one of the biggest leaks of Pentagon documents in the last decade, was formally charged this Thursday for transmission of national defense information and extraction of classified information.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Teixeira, who was a member of the National Guard, a reserve military corps, is charged with six counts. Last April he had been charged and this Thursday he was formally charged for those events.
He is charged with the retention and dissemination of national defense information and the unauthorized removal and possession of classified documents or materials.
Teixeira, arrested on April 13, accessed the documents at the National Guard base where he worked, took them home and posted them on Discord, popular with video game fans. Subsequently, these documents were disseminated through other social networks, such as Telegram, and ended up on the front pages of major newspapers around the world.
Attorney General Merrick Garland noted in the statement that he shared them with users “who he knew were not entitled to receive them. In doing so, he is alleged to have violated US law and endangered national security.”
Acting District Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy recalled that people who are given access to classified material have a duty to safeguard that information.
Documents of the war in Ukraine
Most of the leaked information was related to the war in Ukraine and gave details about US and NATO plans to reinforce the Ukrainian offensive. In addition, it pointed out that the US could have been spying on some of its closest allies, such as Ukraine itself, South Korea and Israel.
Teixeira entered the National Guard in September 2019 and had been authorized to access top-secret information since 2021.
The Department of Justice estimates that it began to save and share it around January 2022. It disseminated that information in two ways: in paragraphs written through that platform, or with images of the documents in which you could read the classification of secrecy or top secret.
Each count of unauthorized withholding and transmission of national defense information carries a sentence of up to ten years in jail, up to three years’ probation and a fine of up to $250,000.
The Justice Department specified that a federal judge will determine the sentence based on various legal factors, adding that the FBI is still investigating the case.
Some analysts compared its potential impact to that caused in 2013 by Edward Snowden when he exposed the scope of the massive espionage programs that the United States launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001.