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Washington (AFP) – FBI agents on Thursday arrested a young member of the US National Guard suspected of being behind a major leak of confidential US government secrets, including intelligence documents about the war in Ukraine.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the arrest “in connection with an investigation into the alleged unauthorized extraction, retention and transmission of classified national defense information.”
At a news conference, Garland identified the suspect as Jack Teixeira, previously described by US media as a 21-year-old airman and the apparent leader of an online chat room where the batch of classified documents first surfaced.
Garland confirmed that Teixeira is an employee of the US Air Force National Guard and said that FBI agents took him into custody “without incident.”
US television broadcast aerial footage showing the suspect, wearing red shorts and hands behind his back, being placed by heavily armed officers in an unmarked vehicle in a wooded area in North Dighton, Massachusetts. ).
Teixeira was due to appear in federal court for the district of Massachusetts.
“Digital Evidence Trail”
The US media began to focus on Teixeira after The Washington Post reported that a man working at a US military base had posted hundreds of pages of documents on the social network Discord.
According to The New York Times, a “trail of digital evidence” pointed to Teixeira as the leader of the private chat group on Discord, called Thug Shaker Central, where the documents appeared.
The leak revealed US concerns about the feasibility of an upcoming counteroffensive by kyiv forces against Russian troops, as well as concerns about Ukrainian air defenses. According to the documents, Washington is spying on allies.
President Joe Biden referred to the leaks during a visit to Ireland, saying he was “concerned”.
Reports said the alleged leaker, who called himself “OG”, had been regularly posting documents on the Thug Shaker Central chat group for months.
The group of about 24 members, including people from Russia and Ukraine, came together over their “mutual love of guns, military equipment and God” and formed an “invitation-only club in 2020 on Discord,” the Post said, which just as the Times cited unidentified members of Thug Shaker Central.
“Implications for National Security”
He first transcribed the contents of the classified documents to share with the group, but then began taking photos and told other members not to share them, the newspaper reported.
OG had a “dark view of government” and “spoke of America, and particularly the law enforcement and intelligence community, as a sinister force that sought to suppress its citizens and keep them in the dark,” the Post said, citing one of the group members.
A Discord spokesperson told AFP that user safety is a priority and that content that violates their policies can result in people being banned, servers being shut down and police being alerted.
“Regarding the apparent breach of classified material, we are cooperating with law enforcement,” the spokesperson said. “As the investigation is ongoing, we are unable to comment further at this time.”