Leak suspect yearned to join military but then regretted it

DIGHTON, Mass. (AP) — The Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking highly classified documents had set his sights on joining the military from an early age. But more recently he had expressed disillusionment about having enlisted.

The 21-year-old Jack Teixeira was accused of unauthorized eradication and retention of classified and national defense information on Friday in Boston’s’s U.S. District Court. This violation has sparked a global tumult and revealed explicit American assessments of the Ukraine War and many closely-kept secrets. Teixeira was ordered to be detained until a hold reading the following year.

Teixeira was raised in the small-scale farming community of Dighton, which is located north of Boston and is dotted with single-family homes. The house of his mother is tucked away in dense forest, down a huge drive. She occasionally sets up a flower vehicle by the side of the road to sell roses using the honor system.

Teixeira revered the army and expressed an later interest in joining, according to two of his classmates who told The Boston Globe. He had a particular emphasis on the development of battle and arms.

John Powell told the Globe,” I remember he used to have a text on, I believe, U.S. defense airplanes, armaments.

Powell described Teixeira as an extrovert and” darling” with a particularly close partnership with his dad, an Air Force veteran, despite the fact that he remembered being bullied in middle school.

Teixeira, a high school classmate of Kailani Reis’s’s, was described by the newspaper as” super quiet” and giving off” loner vibes ,” while Sarah Arnold, another student, told AP that she remembered him as being quiet and keeping to himself.

Defense reports indicate Teixeira joined the Air National Guard in September 2019. The following year, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the classroom to close and proceed remote, he graduated from Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School.

Teixeira and other members of a chat room on the social media site Discord, where the leaks allegedly surfaced, grew close during the pandemic, according to the group’s’s customers. Video enthusiasts and others use the chat apps to communicate online.

A Discord chat group member discussed the discussions with AP, but he declined to give his identify out of concern for his health. According to the person who told the AP, the group, known as” Thug Shaker Central,” drew men who discussed their favorite choices of firearms and shared cartoons or quips, some of which were racist and anti-Semitic.

A ongoing discussion about Russia’s’s invasion of Ukraine was also part of the group. A person went by the moniker” the Oxygen. G.” for decades. According to the Discord person who verified that Oxygen. G. was Teixeira, there were posted reams of classified materials.

Teixeira was an attentive Christian, liked to talk about guns, and frequently prayed with team members, according to the other member. Teixeira had recently expressed” repent( about ) joining” after growing disenchanted with the American military, according to the person. He sometimes threatened to kick my ass if I considered joining.

According to the Discord person, Teixeira was also concerned that the federal government had grown too strong.

Teixeira enlisted for reasons he didn’t fully understand, according to the mumble team member, but it seemed like a financial necessity for his university education. He continued by saying that Oxygen. G. was good at creating cartoons.

He was skilled at his trade. Teixeira” was always a pretty, super serious guy, frequently was most like laughs and giggles ,” the group member added, adding that” He was good with, you know, Photoshop.”

Teixeira was reportedly assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base as a computer transportation systems rookie after being promoted to Airman 1st Class.

Teixeira would have been in charge of maintaining personal networks with access to classified information despite his rather low rank in the technology placement. Teixeira started working full-time at the center, which is situated on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, in October 2021.

Teixeira was described by members of the Discord collection as someone who wanted to brag rather than being driven by a desire to inform the public about American military activities or to change American plan.

Without any supporting evidence, some well-known figures on the right have started praising Teixeira as someone who sought to display the Biden administration and stop further American involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed Teixeira was” white, female, holy, and antiwar” on Twitter while using the incorrect first title. He is now an opposition of the Biden government as a result.

The person of Discord told AP that he didn’t think Teixeira leaked documents for ideological reasons or to destroy the US government.

He continued,” At the end of the day, I mean we’re’re just trying to have a fun time ,” adding that” If I had to judge it, it would be more or less just some nerds wanting to glance over some stuff and compare and contrast and kind of have some joke about it.”