WORCESTER, Mass.—The Massachusetts Air National guardsman accused of leaking highly classified military documents kept an arsenal of guns and said on social media that he would like to kill a “ton of people,” prosecutors said in arguing Thursday that 21-year-old Jack Teixeira should remain in jail for his trial.
“Somebody under the age of 30 has no idea that when they put something on the Internet that it could end up anywhere in this world?” the judge asked. “Seriously?” But Nadine Pellegrini from the Massachusetts US attorney’s office told the judge the information prosecutors submitted to the court about the defendant’s threatening words and behavior “is not speculation, it is not hyperbole, nor is it the creation of a caricature. It is … directly based upon the words and actions of this defendant.”
He remains a grave threat to national security and a flight risk, prosecutors wrote. Investigators are still trying to determine whether he kept any physical or digital copies of classified information that hasn’t surfaced yet. His lawyers argued in court papers that appropriate conditions can be set for his release even if the court finds him to be a flight risk—such as confinement at his father’s home and location monitoring.
The leaked documents appear to detail US and Nato aid to Ukraine and US intelligence assessments regarding US allies that could strain ties with those nations. Some show real-time details from February and March of Ukraine’s and Russia’s battlefield positions and precise numbers of battlefield gear lost and newly flowing into Ukraine from its allies.
Those searches should have triggered the computer to generate an immediate referral to security, which could have then led to a more in-depth review of Teixeira’s file, according to Dan Meyer, a lawyer who specializes in security clearance issues. The Air Force’s investigation will probably discover whether a referral was generated—and whether security officers did anything with the information.