Jack Teixeira was reading a book on the deck of his home in a wooded section of North Dighton, Massachusetts, on Thursday, when federal agents swarmed in for what turned out to be an easy arrest. The 21-year-old airman, who was wearing red shorts and an olive T-shirt, has suddenly emerged as the latest outlaw within America’s national security apparatus, after a flash investigation.
The US authorities believe Teixeira was behind the massive leak of ultra-sensitive military documents, mainly related to the war in Ukraine, in a series of online postings that have shaken the US foreign policy and defence establishments and risk seriously fraying ties with key allies. He was arraigned in federal court on Friday and is being detained until a new hearing next Wednesday.
That such a junior member of the American military could be in possession of highly classified materials — and in a position to publish them — has already triggered mass soul-searching. “It’s extraordinary that he has been able to get access in the way that he has and it shines a light on how shockingly easy it has been to have such a major intelligence gap,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and Americas programme at Chatham House.
Teixeira’s own views, which sit at the crossroads of libertarian politics, guns, video games and religion, will compound those concerns — highlighting the difficulty the US military has in detecting extremists within its midst willing to spill America’s secrets.
Teixeira enlisted in the military in September 2019, and was assigned to the intelligence wing at Otis Air National Guard base on Cape Cod. He was formally working on “cyber transport systems” — meaning he was responsible for helping to keep the US Air Force communication system running — and even won an achievement medal in September 2022.
But a darker side to this otherwise ordinary American story began to emerge online in recent years, as Teixeira posted on the “Thug Shaker Central” channel on a platform called Discord. There he started to share the sensitive material he was gaining access to in his job with a small group of like-minded gun enthusiasts and gaming aficionados.
According to The Washington Post, he used names such as “jackthedripper” and “excalibureffect” — and he was also known just as “OG”. Some members of the group showed the Post a video of him shouting racist and antisemitic slurs, while firing a weapon. “He loved America but simply didn’t feel confident in its future,” a friend told the paper.
Teixeira, whose mother owns a flower shop, was arrested not far from her home. He had graduated from Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School in 2020, but did not stand out there, said two people who knew him at the time. The school, with about 1,000 students, sends “a lot of young men into military because we grew up hunting, and [the] National Guard helps pay for college”, said one pupil, who was a classmate of Teixeira’s.
“He wasn’t in any of the clubs, but he wasn’t a loner or anything — if you told me he’d been playing video games all day though, I’d be surprised, because he wasn’t like those kids either,” said the classmate.
Another student, who asked to be identified only by their gamer handle, Valkeery, said they had met Teixeira at a shooting range, and then agreed to swap tips on techniques over a first-person shooter video game. “He knew a lot about rifles, but he wasn’t showing off — he taught me a bunch,” said Valkeery. “It was Covid, and everybody was just playing video games in their basement all night.”
There is no indication for now that Teixeira considered himself a whistleblower in the vein of Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden, the other two architects of major US national security leaks in the 21st century. Joe Biden, on a trip to Ireland this week, sought to downplay the significance of the case. “There’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence,” he said.
But on the fringes of America’s political spectrum, Teixeira is already becoming something of a hero. “Teixeira is white, male, christian, and anti-war. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime. And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more,” tweeted Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, and a close ally of former president Donald Trump. “Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen [sic]? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”
Most US politicians are however very much in favour of an aggressive prosecution of Teixeira. “The theft and disclosure of sensitive, classified information endangers American personnel overseas. Full stop,” Mike Pence, vice-president under Trump, told Fox News. “I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
It appears that the airman saw this coming in the last few days, as law enforcement closed in. “Guys, it’s been good — I love you all,” Teixeira told his online friends, according to an account in The New York Times. “I never wanted it to get like this. I prayed to God that this would never happen. And I prayed and prayed and prayed. Only God can decide what happens from now on.”
james.politi@ft.com, mehul.srivastava@ft.com
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington