Late last week, the New York Times officially identified the leaders of a group online where hundreds of pictures of highly classified U.S. military documents were leaked as a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard that was situated in Fort Bragg at the time the leak took place.
The newspaper has officially identified the leader of the group as Jack Teixeira, of Bristol, Mass, who allegedly ran a private Discord server titled “Thug Shaker Central” that ended up being comprised of a few dozen like-minded men and children.
The report indicated that U.S. officials want to speak to Teixeira because they think that he “might have information relevant to the investigation.”
A reporter from the New York Times appeared at Teixeira’s family home and was told by his mother that he was employed as a member of the Air National Guard and that he had recently chosen to change his phone number.
The Times stated that a person who was thought to be Teixeira pulled up to the house and that when the Times questioned if he was at all willing to have a conversation with them, a man on the driveway told them that was not the best idea.
“He needs to get an attorney if things are flowing the way they are going right now,” the man stated to the Times. “The Feds will be around soon, I’m sure.”
Just after The New York Times put out its report, Reuters jumped in: “An Air National guardsman suspected of leaking classified Pentagon documents will be arrested today in Massachusetts.”
BREAKING: An Air National guardsman suspected of leaking classified Pentagon documents will be arrested today in Massachusetts pic.twitter.com/7U3tuDvqsu
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 13, 2023
One person in the group stated to The Washington Post that the alleged leaker, who is referred to as “OG,” spoke out with anti-government sentiment but they did not think that he was attempting to help any foreign powers, and they believe that he was just attempting to try and show off.
“If you had classified documents, you’d want to flex at least a little bit, like hey, I’m the big guy,” stated one of the members, who went on, “I would definitely not call him a whistleblower. I would not call OG a whistleblower in the slightest.”
The documents that ended up being leaked held information about current battlefield conditions in Ukraine, information about foreign adversary’s weapons systems, information regarding plans from Egypt to sell weapons to Russia, various assessments about just how deeply U.S. intelligence had penetrated into the Russian military, and quite a bit more.
The report stated that there were a number of forensic clues left in the wake of the leak which would most likely be extremely useful for U.S. law enforcement when it comes to identifying the suspect.