Pentagon leak suspect Jack Teixeira told Discord user ‘delete all messages,’ kept gun locker near bed: DOJ
Fox News
The Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking sensitive Pentagon documents told a Discord user to “delete all messages” and may still have access to “classified information that would be of tremendous value to hostile nation states,” federal prosecutors say.
The claims against Jack Teixeira – who is facing charges of unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and willful retention of classified documents – emerged in a document the Justice Department filed ahead of a detention hearing later Thursday in Worcester, Massachusetts.
“He currently faces 25 years in prison…. 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,” it said, arguing that the 21-year-old should remain held as he poses a serious flight risk.
“Not only does the Defendant stand charged with having betrayed his oath and his country but – when those actions began to surface – he appears to have taken a series of obstructive steps intended to thwart the government’s ability to ascertain the full scope of what he has obtained and the universe of unauthorized users with whom he shared these materials,” the document continued.
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“This includes instructions the Defendant gave to other online members of a social media platform (including to ‘delete all messages’ and ‘[i]f anyone comes looking, don’t tell them s—’) as well as the fact that following his arrest, authorities searched a dumpster at his residence and found a tablet, a laptop, and an Xbox gaming console, all of which had been smashed,” it added.
The Justice Department described the alleged behavior as appearing “calculated to delay or prevent the government from gaining a full understanding of the seriousness and scale of his conduct.”
The filing also included details about what investigators found inside Teixeira’s home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, such as a gun locker two feet from his bed with “multiple weapons, including handguns, bolt-action rifles, shotguns, an AK-style high-capacity weapon, and a gas mask.”
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The Justice Department said “a review of records received from a social media platform also indicate that the Defendant regularly made comments about violence and murder.”
“Of additional concern… the government is also aware that in July 2022, the Defendant used his government computer to search for the following terms: ‘Ruby Ridge,’ ‘Las Vegas shooting,’ ‘Mandalay Bay shooting,’ ‘Buffalo tops shooting,’ and ‘Uvalde,’” the filing also said.
Teixeira’s lawyers on Thursday morning argued he is not a flight risk and that the Justice Department is making “hyperbolic judgments and provides little more than speculation that a foreign adversary will seduce Mr. Teixeira and orchestrate his clandestine escape from the United States.”
His legal team is calling for Teixeira to be released to his father with location monitoring, no access to internet, no contact with witnesses, and a bond of $20,000.
“If the government’s fears about Mr. Teixeira’s intent to flee are to be believed, then he would have done so at the time he became aware of the public reports. Mr. Teixeira made no attempt to flee, even after being publicly named as a suspect,” the attorneys wrote in a filing Thursday.
“Instead, he sat on his mother’s porch reading a Bible in his uniform-compliant undershirt, awaiting the arrival of law enforcement,” it said. “When multiple agents arrived in his mother’s driveway in armored vehicles and gave commands over a loudspeaker, Mr. Teixeira obeyed, and agents arrested him without incident.”