The 21-year-old reservist arrested last night as main suspect in the leak of hundreds of classified documents of the american intelligence has been formally accused this Friday of violate the Espionage Act, which could translate into a long stay behind bars. The federal prosecutor’s office has specifically charged him with the retention and transmission of national defense informationas well as deliberate retention of classified documents from United States. Jack Teixeirathe young national guard allegedly responsible for the dthat diplomatic and military stew that has generated the revelation of secretswas detained on Thursday by heavily armed agents of the fbi in front of the house he shared with his mother in a town in the south of Massachusetts.
His appearance before the judge marks the end of what appears to have been a very expensive exercise in immaturity for a man who apparently had no vocation for martyr of democracybut dedicated himself to sharing state secrets about the ukrainian war or on the US spying on rivals and allies to impress and instruct the twenty or so coming-of-age friends with whom he spent years initially talking about video game and military equipment in a private forum of the platform discord. A few days before being arrested — in shorts and a military shirt, and without putting up any resistance — he had said goodbye to his compadres in the chat room.
“Guys, it’s been good, I love you all,” he told the rest of the members, according to what one of the members of the forum told ‘The New York Times’. “I never wanted this to happen. I prayed to God that it won’t happen. I prayed to him and I prayed to him. From now on, only God can decide what will happen.” Nothing he did, however, was child’s play.
damage assessment
The espionage law imposes up 10 years in jail for each classified document withheld or shared without authorization, and if applicable, there are at least 350, so it has been published so far. From detailed descriptions of the new battalions that Ukraine’s allies are forming for its next entry into combat to the penetration of US espionage into the Russian military upper echelons, which would have allowed it to inform Kiev in advance of the Kremlin’s attack targets.
He Pentagon has created a interdepartmental commission to assess the infinity of damage that the leak could cause, both for the army and its allies, as well as for the intelligence services, which could see their sources and methods of obtaining information compromised. Not to mention the resentment and the loss of confidence that could cause the espionage to which the US would have subjected some of its closest partners, such as Israel, South Korea and Ukraineas well as the UN Secretary General, according to the leaked documents.
One million Americans with access to classified information
There are still many unknowns to be resolved in this case, which has once again exposed the US security apparatus, a true leak straineras they demonstrated Edward Snowden and chelsea manning the past decade. Although it is hard to imagine 1.2 million government officials and contractors they had in 2019 access to classified informationaccording to the Director of the National Intelligence Office.
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In the case of Teixeira, it is not yet known exactly how he accessed it. After finishing high school in the summer of 2020, she began military training to enter the Massachusetts Air National Guardone of the state forces that provide reservists to the Army and the Air Force from USA. Teixeira graduated in October 2021 from one of his units, dedicated to intelligence. Specifically, he went to work as specialist in military communications networks, which according to official sources consulted by the Associated Press could have allowed him to access the highly classified material that he ended up airing.