Air Force suspends leaders of alleged leaker’s unit

The U.S. Air Force has suspended two commanders of the Massachusetts unit that included alleged Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira amid an investigation into the unauthorized release of classified documents.

The Air Force confirmed to The Hill it suspended the commander of the 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron and a detachment commander responsible for overseeing administrative support for airmen within Teixeira’s unit.

“This means that both the squadron’s state Air National Guard operational commander and current federal orders administrative commander have been suspended,” the Air Force said in a statement.

The Air Force also temporarily removed the commanders’ access to classified systems and information.

Both suspensions are temporary pending an internal investigation of the incident from the Air Force launched earlier this month.

The military branch is also conducting a service-wide review of its security practices in the wake of the leak, separate from the Pentagon’s review of its internal procedures and rules regarding classified documents.

Teixeira, 21, worked with the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard at Otis Air National Guard Base before he was arrested on April 14 for the illegal distribution of classified documents.

Earlier this month, the Air Force removed the intelligence mission from the unit in Cape Cod and “temporarily reassigned” it to other organizations within the Air Force.

Teixeira, who has a detention hearing in front of a judge on Thursday, allegedly leaked the documents detailing the affairs of U.S. allies and the war in Ukraine on the online chat forum site Discord for months before they spilled out across social media in March.

The Justice Department has charged Teixeira under the espionage act, and he faces up to 15 years in prison.

In Wednesday court filings, prosecutors said the young airman kept an arsenal of weapons, talked of violence and murder and referenced an “assassination van” on social media.

Prosecutors are requesting the judge keep Teixeira in custody pending a trial, calling the airman a flight risk who has already done “immense” damage to U.S. national security.

Teixeira served as a cyber transport systems specialist with the Air National Guard, essentially an IT worker who helped maintain the network’s security. This granted him access to a high level of security clearance.