BOSTON (AP) — Superiors of the Massachusetts Air National Guard The member accused of leaking highly classified military documents had raised concerns internally on multiple occasions about his handling or viewing of classified information, according to a court filing on Wednesday.
Lawyers for the Justice Department made the disclosure in court documents urging a trial judge to keep Jack Teixeira behind bars while he awaits trial in the biggest intelligence leak case in years. The judge is expected to hear more arguments on Friday about prosecutors arrest request and pass sentence.
Teixeira is accused of sharing highly classified documents on major national security issues in a chat room on Discord, a social media platform that started out as a hangout for gamers. She has yet to enter a guilty plea.
Prosecutors told the judge in their filing that Teixeira continued to leak documents even after his superiors reprimanded him on two separate occasions last year for “troubling actions” he took related to classified information.
a note from september from the 102nd intelligence wing of the Air National Guard that prosecutors brought before the court says Teixeira had been observed taking notes on classified intelligence information and putting them in his pocket. Teixeira was instructed at the time not to take any further notes in any form on classified intelligence information, the memo says.
Other end of october note says a superior had been told that Teixeira was “potentially ignoring the cease and desist order to dig into intelligence” given to him the previous month. The memo says Teixeira attended a meeting and proceeded to ask “very specific questions.” He was again told to focus on his work, not “deep dives” into classified intelligence information.
Still, a third february note says that Teixeira was again observed seeing information “that was not related to his main duty and was related to the intelligence field.” Teixeira “had been previously notified that he should concentrate on his own professional duties and not pursue intelligence products,” the memo says.
“The defendant even continued to share information with his associates online, in defiance of these warnings and in further efforts to conceal his illegal conduct,” prosecutors wrote.
MARGARET LITTLE via Reuters
Lawyers for Teixeira, who was arrested last month on charges under the Espionage Act, are urging the judge to release him to his father’s house, pointing out that the man did not flee when the media began to publish his name shortly before his arrest on April 13. His lawyer told the judge last month that Teixeira “will answer the charges” and “will be tried by his fellow citizens.”
In their own court filing on Wednesday, Teixeira’s lawyers noted that there have been many Espionage Act cases in which the courts approved the release or the government did not seek to keep the person behind bars before trial. They have also said there are no allegations that Teixeira ever intended for the documents to be widely distributed.
But prosecutors said in their filing Wednesday that one of the servers on the social media platform on which he posted classified information had at least 150 users at the time the information was shared and “may now have many more users looking for actively access information. ”
“Among the individuals with whom the defendant shared government information are several individuals who claimed they resided in other countries and logged into the social media platform using foreign IP addresses,” prosecutors wrote.
In the messages, Teixeira bragged about the scope of the information to which he had access, writing: “The information I give here is less than half of what is available,” prosecutors said. He also acknowledged that he was not supposed to share the information, prosecutors said, writing in another message: “All the m—- I’ve told you I’m not supposed to,” according to the Justice Department filing.
Magistrate Judge David Hennessy heard arguments from lawyers about the detention late last month but has yet to issue a ruling and has scheduled a second hearing on the matter for Friday. In previous court records, prosecutors revealed that Teixeira had an arsenal of weapons prior to his arrest and has a history of making disturbing and violent comments.
The leaked documents appear to detail US and NATO aid to Ukraine and US intelligence assessments regarding US allies that could strain ties with those nations. Some show real-time February and March details of Ukrainian and Russian battlefield positions and precise numbers of battlefield equipment lost and newly arrived in Ukraine from its allies.