Defense

Judge orders alleged Pentagon leaker to be held until trial

by Brad Dress - 05/19/23 5:01 PM ET

Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, seated second from right, appears in U.S. District Court, in Boston, Wednesday, April 19, 2023. Teixeira, charged with leaking highly classified military documents, made a brief court appearance Wednesday. But a hearing to determine whether he should remain jailed while awaiting trial has been delayed to give the defense more time to prepare. (AP Photo/Margaret Small)

A federal judge on Friday ordered alleged classified document leaker Jack Teixeira to be held in jail until he faces trial.

Ahead of his determination, Judge David Hennessy in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts said Teixeira had twice been warned by his superiors about the proper handling of classified material.

Henessy said the suspected Pentagon leaker committed “a profound breach” of his “word that he would protect information related to the security of the United States.”

“Who did he put at risk? I mean, you could make a list as long as a phone book,” the judge said at the hearing on Friday.

Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors revealed in court filings that Teixeira was caught taking notes of classified documents or viewing intelligence not under his purview in September and October.

Prosecutors argued that Teixeira should be held until trial, citing social media posts in which he allegedly said he wanted to kill a “ton of people” and his research into mass shootings.

Teixeira also has a variety of guns at his home and was considered a risk by the DOJ because of his access to classified information that would be of interest to foreign governments.

His defense attorneys had argued for his pretrial release under home detention on the grounds he has no criminal history and strong family support.

In a Wednesday filing, they also wrote that other defendants in the past who contained secrets on classified information have been released before and that Teixeira could be held out of jail under a set of “stringent” conditions.

Teixeira, 21, an airman with the Massachusetts Air National Guard at Otis Air National Base, worked as an IT professional and had access to a network of classified information.

He allegedly shared classified material for months to an international, online community of members on the chat forum site Discord.

Teixeira was arrested last month after the documents leaked out of Discord and across the internet.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.