Army Reserve Guardsman Accused of Leaking Records to Remain in Jail for Now

A military guard from Massachusetts was arrested after they leaked confidential documents. His name is Jack Teixeira and he is 21 years old. A magistrate judge said that he must stay jailed until at least next Wednesday when there will be a hearing.

A man from the Massachusetts Air National Guard has been arrested for taking and leaking secret military information. This Friday, he came to court to hear what charges may be made against him. The Justice Department is discussing the possible punishments for his crime.

Last Thursday, 21-year-old Jack Teixeira was put under arrest by armed police. This was after a week of investigating how he had leaked sensitive government secrets to the public – secrets about wars, military powers of other countries, and other classified information that should have stayed hidden.

The Justice Department has filed a legal complaint against Teixeira in Boston for taking away and sharing national defense secret information. He had to go to court today, wearing handcuffs and jail clothes. His lawyer was with him at the courtroom.

Investigators think Teixeira was the head of a closed online group where confidential documents were shared. But why he did it is still not known, and people from that group say Teixeira was just trying to show off and not act on any beliefs or values.

Since last week when this was first released, the Biden government has been doing its best to limit any bad results like diplomatic issues or military problems with other countries.

Some very secret documents have been released. They include things like maps of Ukrainian army positions and opinions about how much help Ukraine is getting from other countries. It also includes ideas about what might make Russian President Vladimir Putin want to use nuclear weapons.

The leak started on a website called Discord, which is popular with people who play online games. Teixeira had posted there for years about different things like guns, games, and his favorite memes. He even shared U.S. secrets that he kept secret while talking to other people on the site. Discord has said they are helping out with the investigation.

The Associated Press had previously reported about someone who was known as “the O.G.” in a chat group called Thug Shaker Central. This online chat group included about two dozen people who were passionate about guns and shared weird GIFs, jokes, even some that were rude and racist. There were also conversations about wars like Russia invading Ukraine.

For months, “The O.G.” was sharing secrets online. He would write his own stories and then, when no one believed it, he started to post pictures of paper with the information on it instead. A person that saw this refused to tell AP what their name is.

At first, it was unknown how Teixeira got access to the records. But on Thursday, someone from the Defense Department told Big Big News that Teixeira had a special job as an IT (Information Technology) person for military communication networks which gave him a high security clearance.

After the person was arrested for leaking information, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the Pentagon will do an investigation to make sure this doesn’t happen again. They’ll look at how they can control their intelligence better and be more accountable.