Judge punts on ruling whether accused classified documents leaker should be detained until trial
Mike Brest
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A federal judge did not immediately decide Thursday whether Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who has been accused of leaking hundreds of classified documents, should remain behind bars while he awaits trial.
The federal magistrate judge assigned to the case, David Hennessy, heard arguments from Teixeira’s attorneys as well as prosecutors.
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Teixeira was escorted out of the courtroom at the end of the roughly 90-minute hearing and remains in custody. The judge did not say whether he would issue a written ruling or convene another hearing to announce his decision.
Prosecutors argued in a filing late Wednesday night that the 21-year-old poses a “serious security risk” in part because he “may still have access to a trove of classified information that would be of tremendous value to hostile nation states that could offer him safe harbor and attempt to facilitate his escape from the United States.” Teixeira’s defense attorneys, however, argued he should be released even if it means imposing restrictions on him, such as location monitoring, barring him from accessing the internet, or contacting any witnesses in the case.
Nadine Pellegrini, one of the prosecutors, argued during the hearing that the government’s position is based on “the words and the actions of this defendant,” not “speculation” or “hyperbole.”
Teixeira is accused of leaking the documents to a private Discord group chat of roughly 20 to 30 individuals around his age with similar interests. He began sharing classified information with them months before he was caught, which only occurred after another member of the group began sharing the information on other social media platforms.
The judge questioned Teixeira’s lawyer over the argument that he didn’t expect the leaked information to be spread further on the internet.
“Someone under the age of 30 has no idea that if they put something on the internet that it could end up anywhere in this world?” Hennessy asked. “But the circumstances of this event are that … he had no idea that it would go beyond this little circle of people on the server … That is like someone arguing, ‘I pulled the trigger, but I had no intent to kill him.’ I find it a little incredible that the defendant could not foresee that possibility.”
Teixeira was charged earlier this month under the Espionage Act with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material.
Teixeira’s father, who is also named Jack Teixeira, told the judge he was willing to report his son to the court if the younger Jack Teixeira were to break his conditions of release.
“My son is well aware of the fact that if he is released and does anything against probation, I will report it to his probation officer or anyone else,” he said.
The prosecutors’ filing preemptively addressed the defense’s argument: “No condition or combination of conditions will reasonably ensure that the defendant does not flee, and that the defendant would not take further steps to obstruct justice, including through the destruction of evidence or other action that would further endanger U.S. national security or the physical safety of his community.”
Prosecutors alleged that Teixeira attempted to destroy evidence before his arrest, which is part of the reason, they said, he shouldn’t be released.
Law enforcement officers searched a Dumpster near his parents’ home, where he was arrested, and discovered a tablet, a laptop, and an Xbox gaming console, all of which had been smashed, and an iPhone box for a new phone, their filing said. He supposedly informed colleagues two days before his arrest that he had a new phone number and email address.
The government, in its filing, also included social media posts purportedly from Teixeira saying that he would “kill a [expletive] ton of people,” that it would be “culling the weak-minded,” and he said he was tempted to make a minivan into an “assassination van” in February 2022. In March of this year, he reportedly described SUVs as “mobile gun trucks” and “[o]ff-road and good assassination vehicles.”
Back when Teixeira was in high school, he was suspended when a classmate overheard him reference weapons, “including Molotov cocktails, guns at the school, and racial threats,” according to the filing, and the incident led the local police department to deny his firearms identification card application in 2018 and again in 2019.
Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder largely declined to answer questions from reporters regarding how Teixeira passed vetting requirements, given the details included in the prosecutor’s filing.
The documents he’s accused of releasing rocked the U.S. intelligence community when news outlets reported on the contents of the documents. Much of the classified information pertained to the war in Ukraine, while other files revealed the extent of the U.S. intelligence community’s spying on both allies and adversaries.
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Both the Air Force Inspector General and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie are investigating the leak and the department’s policies regarding the handling of classified information. While their investigations continue, the Pentagon has already begun restricting access to certain classified information.
The Air Force announced on Wednesday the suspension of both the commander and the detachment commander overseeing Teixeira’s unit.