15 years in prison for disclosing confidential documents

The former member of the US Air National Guard who pleaded guilty to a resounding leak of secret documents was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison by a federal court, US media announced.

Jack Teixeira, 22, was arrested in April 2023 in his parents’ house near Boston, after several days of research by the federal police (FBI) alerted by a series of leaks of classified documents.

These documents, shared on a discussion group on the Discord platform then distributed on other social networks, revealed the concerns of the American intelligence services about the viability in 2023 of a Ukrainian counter-offensive. They also implied that the United States was collecting intelligence on its closest partners, notably Israel and South Korea.

“I’m sorry for anything I did wrong,” Jack Teixeira apologized before judge Indira Talwani who pronounced the sentence. “I understand that all responsibilities rest on my shoulders alone. And I accept the consequences,” he added, according to American media present in the courtroom.

“You may be young, but you probably know better than those of my generation how easily things spread on the internet,” the judge said.

The affair had embarrassed Washington and raised questions about possible security breaches, the young soldier having a secret defense clearance allowing him to access this sensitive information despite his modest rank.

It is one of the largest leaks of confidential documents since Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about mass electronic spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA), which led to the launcher alert to leave the United States and take refuge in Russia.

Jack Teixeira enlisted in the Air National Guard in September 2019 and reached the rank of enlisted first class — the third lowest in the hierarchy — in May 2022. At Otis Base, on Cape Cod, south of Boston, he was a specialist in IT and communications and was working in February 2023 on cyber-defense operations.

His group on Discord consisted mainly of young men who were passionate about guns and military equipment. According to prosecutors, Jack Teixeira “regularly expressed comments about violence and murder” on social media.

The prosecution also pointed out that he had several weapons, some “a few meters from his bed” and that the search of his mother and father’s homes had revealed “almost an arsenal”, including rifles and a bazooka. His lawyers, on the contrary, portrayed a young man with “naive” intentions, wanting above all to impress the members of his group.

After his arrest, Jack Teixeira initially denied the accusations, then he ended up pleading guilty to six charges of “voluntary preservation and transmission of information relating to national defense”, avoiding a trial which could have earned him a heavier sentence. However, he is not finished with this affair, because the American army is also pursuing him before military justice and he will be tried before a court martial.