After pleading guilty in March to 6 counts of willful retention and transmission of nationwide protection data underneath the Espionage Act, former Air Nationwide Guard member Jack Teixeira was sentenced today to 15 years in prison for posting “a whole lot of pages” of categorized army paperwork on Discord.
A number of the leaked data included sensitive details about troop actions in Ukraine and beforehand unknown details about US intelligence gathering on different nations like China, Russia, and South Korea.
Whereas stationed at an air base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Teixeira was granted a Prime-Secret//Delicate Compartmented Data safety clearance vital for “sustaining and troubleshooting” categorized workstations within the intelligence wing. In keeping with the DOJ, he “used a safe workstation on the Otis USANG Base to conduct a whole lot of searches for categorized paperwork containing NDI that had been unrelated to his duties.”
At first, he shared typed-up variations of the categorized paperwork however later posted precise pictures of the supplies — together with some labeled “Prime Secret” — after different group members didn’t pay sufficient consideration to his posts. The New York Times reported {that a} path of digital proof, together with a particular sample on a granite countertop in his childhood residence, linked Teixeira to the leaked materials.
“Mr. Teixeira is answerable for participating in some of the important leaks of categorized paperwork and data in United States historical past, which resulted in exceptionally grave and long-lasting injury to the nationwide safety of the US,” Performing U.S. Legal professional Joshua S. Levy for the District of Massachusetts stated in a press release.