The Air National Guardsman suspected of leaking a trove of classified material on social media was repeatedly warned by his seniors in the Air Force over his mishandling of documents, according to a Wednesday filing that alleges the leak was “more widespread and diverse than previously known.”
In the filing, to the United States District Court of Massachusetts, prosecutors ask for Jack Teixeira to remain detained while arguing that since his last court appearance on April 27, Teixeira has undergone “extensive efforts...to frustrate the government’s ability to ascertain the full scope of classified national defense information that he compromised.”
The latest bombshells in the case come days before a federal magistrate judge will decide whether Teixeira will sit in prison as he awaits trial for dumping a trove of documents on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers. Lawyers for Teixeira have asked he be released to his father’s custody, and claimed their client did not intend “any information purportedly [posted] to the private social media server to be widely disseminated.”
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However, prosecutors say they now have “additional evidence—including the Defendant’s own words about his motive and actions,” and reveal he even allegedly bragged about the breadth and sensitivity of the information he was revealing.
The government said its investigation makes clear that “the Defendant directly posted classified information to multiple servers on the social media platform over the course of many months.”
One of those servers, the filing states, “had at least 150 users at the time the information was posted and now may have many more users that are actively seeking access to classified information.” The filing added: “The Defendant cannot now be trusted to refrain from causing further harm.”
At the time, Teixeira “boasted about the wide swath of classified information he had access to by virtue of his position and encouraged efforts to broaden his unauthorized disclosures beyond the war between Russia and Ukraine,” the filing said, using messages from Teixeira to prove its point—including a Jan. 4 chat that read: “theres gonna be a fuck ton of information here.” He added: “None of this is public information. Man, how fucked up is it i can type out all this shit and still be ready for more but can barely get through a two page college paper.”
At the same time, the filing states, Teixeira’s disclosures–and continued boasting–continued, even after he was pulled up by Air Force seniors twice. The first instance occurred in September 2022 and then a month later, in October 2022, “amid concerning actions that the Defendant took related to classified information.” Using three Air Force memorandums which describe Teixeira’s alleged misconduct in handling classified information to support their claims, the documents reveal how Teixeira was observed taking notes on classified intelligence and putting them in his pocket. Some of the report is redacted, included Teixeira’s reply when asked if was going to shred the notes. In October, “Teixeira was potentially ignoring a cease-and-desist order on deep diving into intelligence,” another report states.
“On these occasions, the Defendant met with his superiors and was instructed to no longer take notes in any form on classified intelligence information and to ‘cease-and-desist on any deep dives into classified intelligence information.’”
Yet, Teixeira kept sharing and in December, he admitted online that was “breaking a ton of UD regs,” and posted “Idgaf what they say I can or can’t share.... [a]ll of the shit I’ve told you guys I’m not supposed to.”
Again, in February 2023, Teixeira was caught viewing intelligence documents that were not related to his duties.
Teixeira has not yet entered a formal plea.
“The Defendant promised to keep the national security secrets of the United States safe and to uphold and defend the Constitution,” the filing ends.
“Despite being warned of the consequences of breaking that promise, the Defendant ignored his oath and published sensitive, top-secret documents for his own pleasure. The Court should have no confidence that the promises he might make in this proceeding would mean any more to him than the many promises the Defendant has already broken.”
