The Massachusetts Air National Guard airman accused of leaking classified national security information, a breach that Pentagon brass, federal prosecutors, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say is highly damaging to the United States, will remain in federal custody while a judge determines if he will grant bail.
Jack Teixeira, 21, who shared the information in an online discussion group, appeared on April 27 in a federal courtroom in Worcester, Massachusetts, before federal magistrate judge David Hennessy.
Hennessy said at the hearing that he would need more time to decide Teixeira’s request, filed by his attorneys on April 26, that he be allowed to be free on bail ahead of his trial.
FBI agents arrested Teixeira outside his family home in Dighton, Massachusetts, on April 13. He is charged with “unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information” and “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material.”
If convicted on both charges, Teixeira could face up to 25 years in prison.
‘Flight Risk’
Prosecutors submitted their filing on April 26, requesting that Teixeira be kept behind bars, arguing that he is a risk to flee the country, a danger to national security, and poses a threat to the public.Teixeira “poses a serious flight risk,” wrote the prosecutors in the 18-page court document. “He currently faces 25 years in prison—and potentially far more—and other serious consequences for his conduct; the evidence against him is substantial and mounting; the charged conduct would very obviously end his military career; and he accessed and 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.”
The filing describes a gun locker next to Teixeira’s bed in which were stored “multiple weapons, including handguns, bolt-action rifles, shotguns, an AK-style high-capacity weapon, and a gas mask,” and that “FBI special agents also found ammunition and tactical pouches on his dresser and what appeared to be a silencer-style accessory in his desk.”
Photos included from Teixeira’s residence show his military-themed bedroom, a variety of firearms, paper targets riddled with what looks to be bullet or pellet holes, and a flak jacket.
Also included in the document are pages of online chat messages that the FBI culled from Texeira’s accounts that include the following messages: “I hope isis goes through with their attack plan and creates a massacre at the World Cup” and “If I had my way I'd kill a [expletive] ton of people.”
In a chat message referring to a Dodge Caravan, Teixeira wrote, “I’ve been tempted to buy one and make it an assassination van.”
Judge Hennessy was not persuaded by Teixeira’s attorneys contending that their client did not realize that the classified information he posted and shared could spread online beyond his discussion group.
“Somebody under the age of 30 has no idea that when they put something on the internet that it could end up anywhere in this world?“ Hennessy asked. ”Seriously?”
