Jack Teixeira, a young American soldier arrested in 2023 for a leak of classified defense documents, notably on the war in Ukraine, pleaded guilty on Monday March 4, sealing an agreement for sixteen years in prison against the abandonment of the prosecution. more serious for espionage.
Jack Teixeira, 22, appeared in federal court in Boston wearing an orange inmate’s outfit. He admitted to disseminating information relating to American national defense, but prosecutors will not charge him with espionage, which could have earned him life in prison.
“Mr. Teixeira coldly set aside the national security of the United States and betrayed his solemn oath to defend his country and the trust of the American people he was sworn to protect”said a representative of the US Department of Justice, Matthew Olsen, in a statement.
By reaching a legal agreement, the recruit of the Air Force National Guard will escape a criminal trial, but will be sentenced by a judge to sixteen years and eight months of imprisonment, 50,000 dollars (approximately 46,000 euros ) fine and will have to help intelligence officials understand how the leak was possible.
Embarrassment for Washington
Jack Teixeira had so far pleaded not guilty, after being indicted in particular by a federal grand jury – a jury of citizens who participate in the investigation phase – with six counts of “voluntary retention and transmission of information relating to national defense”, each punishable by up to ten years in prison. The FBI arrested him on April 13 outside his family home in Dighton, south of Boston, a few days after the revelations of these leaks in the American press.
Hired as a computer and communications specialist at a military base on Cape Cod, near this historic New England city, Jack Teixeira published confidential information on a discussion group on the Discord platform, which subsequently circulated on other social networks. The secret documents had revealed US intelligence concerns about the viability of a Ukrainian counter-offensive. They also implied that Washington was collecting intelligence on its closest partners, notably Israel and South Korea.
The affair embarrassed Washington and raised questions about possible security breaches, even though the young soldier had a secret defense clearance, allowing him to access this sensitive information, despite his modest rank. .
Mr. Olsen emphasized that “illegal revelations” by Mr. Teixeira “affected the abilities [américaines] in matters of intelligence, compromised [leurs] sources and methods and blinded the United States to threats from hostile nations and terrorist groups”.
A new business
Furthermore, the Ministry of Justice announced, Monday, the arrest, on Saturday, of a civilian employee of the Air Force assigned to the headquarters of the Strategic Nuclear Weapons Command (Stratcom), on the basis of Offutt, Nebraska, for disclosing classified information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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David Franklin Slater, 63, a former Army lieutenant colonel, is accused of transmitting classified information between February and April 2022 “through messaging from a foreign dating site to his accomplice, who claimed to be a woman living in Ukraine”particularly on “Military targets and Russian military capabilities regarding the invasion of Ukraine”, according to a press release. She called him in her messages “secret informant love”underlines the ministry.
He will be presented to a judge on Tuesday and faces up to ten years in prison and a fine of 250,000 dollars (approximately 230,000 euros) per count of disclosure of information relating to national defense, according to the same source.