Airman Charged in Leak of Classified Documents

The Justice Department on Friday filed criminal charges against Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, accusing him of leaking classified US documents detailing everything from an assessment of the Ukrainian battlefield to secret surveillance of America’s allies.

A day after being detained by federal agents, Airman First Class Teixeira appeared in a Boston courtroom on Friday morning, handcuffed and wearing a beige prison uniform. He was charged with two separate charges related to the unauthorized handling of the material and faces a maximum sentence of 15 years if convicted.

Judge Paul G. Levenson ordered Airman Teixeira, who did not enter a plea, to remain in custody and scheduled a follow-up hearing for Wednesday.

In an 11-page complaint unsealed after the hearing, FBI special agents with the bureau’s counterintelligence division in Washington detailed what had been publicly reported: Airman Teixeira used access to sensitive information as computer network specialist to send documents bearing top secret marks to online game chat groups.

Although legal proceedings are under way in the case of leaks that have shut down the Biden administration and possibly jeopardized sensitive intelligence activities, the hard work for US officials has only just begun as they review security protocols across the government to figure out how to prevent another mass disclosure. of federal secrets.

President Biden cited the difficult task in a statement issued Friday, in which he praised law enforcement’s quick work in identifying and apprehending Airman Teixeira.

“While we are still determining the authenticity of the document, I have instructed the military and intelligence community to take steps to further secure and limit the distribution of sensitive information,” the president said.

Mr. Biden added that his national security team was “coordinating closely with our partners and allies.” The leak has raised concerns in foreign capitals that intelligence shared with Washington may have been affected, and has caused embarrassment as it warns that the United States is spying on even close allies, including South Korea and Israel.

In subsequent comments to reporters, Mr. Biden added that he had instructed officials to “listen to why they got access in the first place.”

The Pentagon has provided little information about what the security review might entail. In a statement issued after the arrest on Friday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said he had directed a review of intelligence access, accountability and control procedures to “prevent this incident from happening again.”

The main question is whether security lapses could have allowed the documents to be removed from the database, or whether the disclosure indicates a systemic problem, such as how many people have access to classified information. That fact allowed other young government employees, including former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, to obtain and distribute large amounts of sensitive documents not directly related to their job duties.

While Mr. Biden’s remarks were directed broadly at the military and intelligence agencies, officials said that based on what they know now, the Defense Department will make initial steps to tighten security. Officials expressed reluctance to limit the intelligence shared with the Pentagon and said the first steps of the security review would focus on improving the way the military provides access to such material.

Top Republicans on Friday praised the airman’s arrest even as Speaker Kevin McCarthy accused the Biden administration of being “asleep at the switch” to protect state secrets. But Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia went further, calls Airman Teixeira a “hero” who have exposed government secrets that the administration has tried to hide and who have been unfairly targeted for their right-wing views.

Airman Teixeira is assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron, a component of the 102nd Intelligence Wing, headquartered at Otis Air National Guard Base at Joint Base Cape Cod in Eastern Massachusetts. They are trained as what the military calls “Cyber ​​Transportation Systems Journeyman,” or specialists responsible for helping maintain the force’s communications network.

According to the Air Force’s career website, all “cyber transportation system” airmen must pass the kind of background investigation required for top-secret clearance, which allows them to work on computer networks that carry the most sensitive data.

Airmen assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing and 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron produce intelligence reports from data collected by various sensors on the U-2, RQ-4 Global Hawk, MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper and other intelligence and reconnaissance aircraft and system, US military officials said on Friday.

Airman Teixeira was a computer systems technician who supported the analyst who compiled the report, one official said. Unlike many reservists who deploy overseas while being mobilized for active duty, Airman Teixeira and other members of the unit are able to perform all of their assigned duties at their base on Cape Cod.

A Justice Department charging document filed Friday said Airman Teixeira’s online associates told FBI agents that the young guard began sharing classified information in an online chat room in December, first as “paragraphs of text.” Beginning in January, he said, airmen began sending images of raw intelligence documents printed at their workplaces, surreptitiously taking them home and photographing them for uploading.

The details match the accounts of law enforcement officials and Airman Teixeira’s online partner interviewed by The New York Times, though they say the leaks date back no later than October. He said he initially relied on a small group of like-minded people discussing interests, including hardware and military games, in invite-only chat groups on Discord.

Hundreds of classified documents were shared, group members and law enforcement officials said, including detailed battlefield maps from Ukraine and a secret assessment of Russia’s war machine.

The goal, group members say, is to educate and impress.

Some of the uploaded documents, the Justice Department said, contained information “used to brief senior military and civilian officials” during briefings at the Pentagon.

The complaint said the FBI was able to identify Airman Teixeira after learning the username on what it called “Social Media Platform 1” from the association and obtaining records from the company indicating that it was linked to an account created using his real name. address in North Dighton, Mass.

Federal charging documents show that Airman Teixeira was granted a top-secret security clearance in 2021, which is required for his job as a computer network technician.

While it may seem like an incredible level of access for a junior-ranking service member, having the top secret clearance on the job is no mean feat. Pentagon officials say the number of people with such access is in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

The affidavit states that he was given access to so-called sensitive compartment information, or SCI, which typically tells users how the intelligence was derived — such as using human spies or intercepting signals.

The network most commonly used by Defense Department employees working with intelligence is the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, or JWICS — pronounced “JAY-wicks.”

Much of the material in the leaked file appears to be information that would be available to anyone with access to a JWICS computer terminal, which can be used to visit “portals” – mainly websites – for various intelligence community agencies as well. many individual military units.

The top-secret and top-level portals of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency usually feature brief sketches of world events on their front pages, divided by geographic region and topic area.

Outputting the file is as easy as pressing “print” on a JWICS terminal connected to a printer.

Patrick M. Lueckenhoff, special agent of the FBI, told a federal judge that there is probable cause to believe that Airman Teixeira has violated two sections of Title 18 of the federal code.

Section 793, better known as the Espionage Act, is a piece of World War I-era legislation that criminalizes the mishandling of information related to national defense that could be used to harm the United States or aid a foreign enemy. A conviction carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years for each offense.

Mr. Lueckenhoff said Airman Teixeira has violated two separate provisions of Section 793. One is the unauthorized retention of such information, and the other is the transmission or disclosure of information to a person who is not authorized to receive it.

Section 1924 criminalizes the misuse of confidential information. This is punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to five years.

The charging document alleges that Airman Teixeira knew the consequences of his actions, and even used government computers to search classified intelligence for the word “leaked” on April 6, when a leaked document became public.

There is reason to believe, the complaint said, that he was seeking a confidential report on the leak investigation as well as information on the intelligence community’s assessment of the leaker’s identity.

Julian E. Barnes, Helen Cooper, Karoun Demirjian, John Ismay, Jenna Russell, Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt and Glenn Thrush contribute reports.