A 21-year-old Air National Guardsman was hit with federal charges Friday, accused of unauthorized retention, removal and transmission of national defense information and classified documents that he allegedly leaked online.
Jack Douglas Teixeira, an airman 1st class for the 102nd Intelligence Wing based at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, not only had a Top Secret security clearance but also sensitive compartmented access (SCI), a more restrictive designation for some of the government's most closely guarded secrets, since 2021, according to a newly released affidavit from the Justice Department.
“Teixeira would have signed a lifetime binding non-disclosure agreement in which he would have had to acknowledge that the unauthorized disclosure of protected information could result in criminal charges,” the affidavit details.
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Teixeira oversaw a private online chat group in which more than a dozen young men would discuss guns, memes and video games, according to The New York Times. The group was named “Thug Shaker Central” on Discord, a website connected to video gaming.
But Teixeira for months was also releasing photos of classified defense documents pertaining to operations in the Ukraine war, as well as U.S. surveillance efforts around the world, federal officials claim.
The young airman was able to acquire the documents due, in…
