BOSTON — A Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused in the leak of highly classified military documents appeared in court Friday as prosecutors unsealed charges and revealed how billing records and interviews with social media comrades helped pinpoint the suspect.
Teixeira appeared in federal court in Boston to face charges, under the Espionage Act, of unauthorized retention and transmission of classified national defense information. He did not enter a plea, but a federal magistrate judge ordered him jailed until a detention hearing next week. The eight-page court affidavit details several steps in the FBI investigation, including an interview Monday with a Discord user familiar with Teixeira’s online posts. The document does not identify the person or say how he or she was located. But the source told the FBI that a username linked to Teixeira began posting what appeared to be classified information roughly in December in an online chat that the user said was meant for the discussion of geopolitical affairs and past and current wars.
That’s different from what posters have told The Associated Press and other media outlets, saying the user they would call “the O.G.” started posting images of documents because he was annoyed other users weren’t taking him seriously. His court appearance Friday was brief. He entered the room in tan jail clothes and sat at the defense table next to his lawyer. At the end, a man who appeared to be a family member in the front row told Teixeira he loved him and the defendant responded “I love you, too.” His lawyer did not return a message seeking comment.