BOSTON (CN) — A 22-year-old technology support staffer for the Massachusetts Air National Guard pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to espionage charges after posting classified documents to a group on the social media platform Discord.
Jack Teixeira told U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani that he accepted a plea deal under which he will serve a prison term of between 11 years and 16 years, eight months — with the government recommending the top of that range. He also agreed to a $50,000 fine.
The judge accepted the guilty plea but deferred sentencing until September 27.
Teixeira, who has a fraught history of collecting weapons and making threats, was charged under the Espionage Act for leaking six documents, five of which were labeled “top secret,” the highest classification. The documents described Ukrainian troop movements, deliveries of military supplies to Ukraine, a plot by a foreign country against U.S. forces and internal actions by foreign nations.
Each count carries a maximum 10-year sentence and a fine of up to $250,000.
During an hourlong hearing, Teixeira — a tall young man in orange prison scrubs — answered dozens of the judge’s questions politely and stoically. When it was over he turned and gave a brief smile to his family.
Although the government’s indictment said the leaked information “reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security,” President Joe Biden told reporters after Teixeira’s arrest last April that the documents contained nothing “of great consequence.”
Biden himself was recently found to have willfully mishandled classified documents, although no charges will be brought. Similar charges are pending against former President Donald Trump.
Teixeira acquired a top-level security clearance in July 2021, when he was 19 years old. Prosecutors say he improperly collected and disclosed information from January 2022 through April 2023.
Questions about his clearance have been raised given his troubling history, including being suspended in high school for discussing Molotov cocktails and other weapons and making racial threats. According to the Washington Post, Teixeira was known as a racist who anticipated a violent struggle against Jews, Blacks, political liberals and LGBTQ people.
More recently, prosecutors said, Teixeira used his government computer to research mass shootings and standoffs with federal agents, including the search terms “Ruby Ridge,” “Las Vegas shooting,” “Mandalay Bay shooting,” “Uvalde” and “Buffalo tops shooting” — an apparent reference to a 2022 attack by a white supremacist at a Buffalo, N.Y. supermarket.
In November 2022 he stated on social media that he would like to “kill a [expletive] ton of people” as a way of “culling the weak minded.”
Prosecutors say they found an arsenal of weapons in his home, including handguns, bolt-action rifles, shotguns, an AK-style high-capacity weapon, a gas mask, night-vision goggles, ammunition and tactical pouches, a silencer-style accessory, and a military-style helmet with a mounting bracket that could be used for a camera.
Prosecutors didn’t allege a motive for the documents leak, but several sources have suggested that Teixeira was simply showing off to his Discord group of some 20 to 30 military enthusiasts. At one point, according to prosecutors, he told the Discord group that “I don’t give a fuck” about the secrecy of government documents.
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