The young Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking classified military documents to an online server is poised to plead guilty to federal charges in the case next week, according to prosecutors, who signaled the incoming change of plea in a court motion filed Thursday.
Jack Teixeira previously pleaded not guilty to six charges of willful retention and transmission of national defense information, each count of which is punishable by up to 10 years behind bars. He has agreed to a plea deal, a person familiar with the proceedings told The New York Times, though it was not immediately clear what its terms were or to what charges Teixeira will plead.
The 22-year-old has been in federal custody since his arrest last April, deemed a “serious” flight risk by prosecutors, who alleged that he began wiping his digital footprint after the breach was detected and the Times published the first report of the leak. A judge agreed that Teixeira might continue attempting to obstruct the case if freed, and ruled that his “disquieting interest” in weapons and violence was another reason to keep him in pretrial detention.
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“When Teixeira spoke to other participants on his social media platform, he exhibited a chilling interest in violence and disregard for human life,” she wrote, according to Boston station WCVB, adding that his messages “display both an affinity for violence and vitriol for certain classes of people.”
Teixeira, a cyber transport systems specialist, enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019 and obtained top secret security clearance two years later, the Justice Department previously said. He is believed to have begun posting information about classified material to Discord, an online chat platform, as early as December 2022, graduating to posting photos of the documents the next month.
Some of the documents contained intelligence about North Korea, Israel, and Russia’s war in Ukraine, including assessments of military action and details on shipments of military equipment from Washington to Kyiv, according to the Justice Department.
An Air Force inspector general’s report published late last year found that while Teixeira was directly responsible for the leak, his superiors had failed to supervise and restrict him properly, ignoring red flags about his behavior in the months before the breach was discovered. More than a dozen members of the Guard were subsequently disciplined.
In their Thursday filing, federal prosecutors requested a Rule 11 hearing, in which a change of plea is discussed, for March 4, when a pretrial conference had previously been scheduled. A judge agreed to the motion and set the hearing shortly after.
