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Jack Teixeira

US authorities arrested Jack Douglas Teixeira [tay-SH-AIR-ah], a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard information technology specialist, in connection with the disclosure of highly classified military documents about the Ukraine war and other top national security issues. The leak started on the social media site Discord, where Teixeira posted for years. Jack Teixeira was an airman first class detailed to the Air Force 102nd Intelligence Wing based at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts.

His specialty in the Air National Guard is as a “cyber transport systems specialist,” which is essentially an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks, including their cabling and hubs. There are ten designated cyber enlisted AFSCs (four undecided) in three borad cyb. There are three broad cyber mission categories: Cyber operations (1B0XX’s), Cyber Systems (1B1XX’s) and Cyberwarfare Operators, (1B4X’s) and NetOps, (1B4X2’s). 1BX2, Cyber Transport Systems focus on airborne and net infrastructure availability. There are four grades for this specialist: AFSC 3D172, Craftsman [the highest]; 3D152, Journeyman; AFSC 3D132, Apprentice; and AFSC 3D112, Helper [the lowest.]

Cyber transport systems specialists ensure the core infrastructure of the Air Force’s network is properly working to maintain global communication. The specialist deploys, sustains, troubleshoots and repairs standard voice, data and video network infrastructure systems, IP detection systems and cryptographic equipment. Performs, coordinates, integrates and supervises network design, configuration, operation, defense, restoration, and improvements. Analyzes capabilities and performance, identifies problems, and takes corrective action. Fabricates, terminates, and interconnects wiring and associated network infrastructure devices.

Knowledge of electronic and network principles, information assurance, telephony, copper and fiber-optic transmission principles, cryptographic techniques, network system installation practices, project and circuit diagram interpretation, test equipment, special tools, and management practices is mandatory. For entry into this specialty, completion of high school or general educational development equivalency is mandatory. Additional courses in mathematics, computer science, computer principles or information technologies is desirable. Any computing or network commercial certification is desirable.

The leaked documents detailed US and NATO aid to Ukraine and US intelligence assessments regarding US allies that could strain ties with those nations. Some showed details from February and March of Ukraine’s and Russia’s battlefield positions and precise numbers of battlefield gear lost and newly flowing into Ukraine from its allies. They also reveal just how close Ukraine’s vital air defense systems are to running out of missiles – with stocks expected to be exhausted as soon as late April or May, absent significant resupply.

Previously unreported sensitive disclosures about South Korea, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and others are also included. There are no clear answers on how many documents were leaked - some estimates put the total number in the hundreds. Senior officials in President Joe Biden's administration say they are working to stop the flow of classified information onto social media and websites and head off any lasting damage to relationships with allies and strategic partners.

The US intelligence agencies – funded at $90 billion annually – have sweeping powers to tap electronic communications, run spies and monitor with satellites. The results of those powers are rarely seen in public, even in limited form.

Discord is a social media platform popular with people playing online games. The Discord site hosts real-time voice, video and text chats for groups and describes itself as a place “where you can belong to a school club, a gaming group, or a worldwide art community.” Discord users skew young – about 38% of its web users and nearly half of its Android app users are between the ages of 18 and 24, according to digital intelligence platform Similarweb. They are roughly 75% male, the research group said.

Teixeira liked to chat about guns, was an observant Christian, and would often pray with group members, a fellow member said. In recent months, Teixeira had become disillusioned about the US military and had begun to express “regret [about] joining”, the person said. “He even said he’d kick my a** if I thought about joining.” Teixeira also worried the federal government had become too powerful, according to the Discord user. The chat group member said he was not sure why Teixeira enlisted, but believed he needed money for college.

Members of the Discord group described Teixeira as someone looking to show off rather than being motivated by a desire to inform the public about US military operations or to influence US policy. The Discord member said he did not believe Teixeira leaked documents to undermine the US government or for an ideological reason.

Teixeira is believed to have posted on the site for years about guns, games and his favorite memes. Some who chatted with him said he also posted about closely guarded US secrets. Accounts of those in the online private chat group where the documents were disclosed have depicted Teixeira as motivated more by bravado than ideology.

In March 2018, his sophomore year, a group of students reported Teixeira to the administration aWer they heard him "talking about Molotov cocktails and guns," according to a copy of a Dighton police report that The Post and "Frontline" obtained following an official records request. Teixeira allegedly told one student, "I've got a moly Molotov cocktail] in my bag!" and asked, "What would you do if I threw one down the hall?" Another student said Teixeira made a similar statement to him about throwing the explosive at school.

Two teachers who had been trained on how to respond to a school shooter, and to spot warning signs ofviolence in their students, also expressed concerns about Teixeira "because of how much he talks about guns," according to the police report.

A month earlier Teixeira had shown classmates at a lunch table a video of someone apparently killed in battle in the Middle East. "Look at this!" Teixeira said "with a smile, almost as if he was excited," the police report said.

Dighton police also took statements from several students who said Teixeira had made violent threats against Black people. They told investigators that Teixeira said, "I want to kill all Black people," "Black people don't exist," and "I hate niggers," according to the police report. One student said Teixeira used the phrase "I want to kill all Black people" in his automotive class "a lot."

One female student who reported Teixeira to administrators told police that he "makes racist comments and is always talhng about guns or war and that she had also heard about him killing animals," according to the report. The student also noted that Teixeira was attempting to obtain a firearms identihcation card "and that someone should kmow about it." In the state of Massachusetts, the card permits the possession of "non-large-capacity rifles, shotguns, and ammunition.

A defense official told the AP that Teixeira would have had a higher level of security clearance as a cyber transport systems specialist because he would have been responsible for accessing military communications networks and ensuring their protection.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said there were “very serious penalties” associated with the crimes allegedly committed by Teixeira. “People who sign agreements to be able to receive classified documents acknowledge the importance to the national security of not disclosing those documents, and we intend to send that message [about] how important it is to our national security,” Garland said.

The penalty Teixeira would face if he is convicted is unclear at this stage. Attorney General Garland said he'll be charged with removing or transmitting classified national defense information, a crime under the Espionage Act. Any sentence would depend on how many counts a defendant is convicted of and whether they are served consecutively or concurrently.

The Inspector General of the Department of the Air Force report 11 December 2023 [dated August 2023 ] "Evidence indicates some members in A1C Teixeira’s unit, reporting chain, and leadership had information about as many as four separate instances of his questionable activity. A smaller number of unit members had a more complete picture of A1C Teixeira’s intelligence-seeking behaviors and intentionally failed to report the full details of these security concerns/incidents as outlined in DoD security policies, fearing security officials might “overreact.” Had any of these members come forward, security officials would likely have facilitated restricting systems/facility access and alerted the appropriate authorities, reducing the length and depth of the unauthorized and unlawful disclosures by several months....

"Based on the preponderance of the evidence gathered during the investigation, three individuals in the unit who understood their duty to report specific information regarding A1C Teixeira’s intelligence-seeking and insider threat indicators to security officials, intentionally failed to do so. ... Some members mistakenly believed they could report violations to their supervisors (chain of command) and/or other officials, instead of the proper security official, as required in this case. ... Computer/IT specialists require system access to perform system maintenance, but do not require access to intelligence content or products to maintain the system."

Beginning on Sept. 7, 2023, Air National Guard leaders initiated disciplinary and other administrative actions against 15 individuals, ranging in rank from E-5 to O-6, for dereliction in the performance of duties. The actions ranged from relieving personnel from their positions, including command positions, to non-judicial punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Col. Sean Riley, 102 IW commander, received administrative action and was relieved of command for cause and Col. Enrique Dovalo, 102d Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group commander received administrative action for concerns with unit culture and compliance with policies and standards.

The documents are dated from February 23, 2023, until March 1, 2023.

Two different versions of the viewgraphs were floating around, using suspicious numbers. The original "source" is a discord group, which then leaked onto 4chan and Telegram. The provenance of the leaked information is unknown, and indeed there is reason to believe that some of the data has been manipulated to help shape public opinion regarding casualty figures for both Russia and Ukraine.

The documents may have been altered or used as part of a misinformation campaign, some US officials said. The documents appeared to have been altered to lower the number of Russian casualties, according to their own informal assessment which is separate from the official investigation into the leak. One document posted on social media said 16,000 to 17,500 Russian casualties since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. US authorities have previously put given a figure of around 200,000 Russians killed and wounded.

Hours later, another batch of classified documents that seem to detail US security interests in various corners of the world was published online, prompting the US authorities to launch an investigation into this matter.

Ukrainian officials also played down the idea of military intelligence being compromised. "It is very important to remember that in recent decades, the Russian special services' most successful operations have been taking place in Photoshop," Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's military intelligence directorate, said on Ukrainian TV. "From a preliminary analysis of these materials, we see false, distorted figures on losses on both sides, with part of the information collected from open sources."

Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said the documents contained a "very large amount of fictitious information" and resembled "a Russian disinformation operation to sow doubts about Ukraine's planned counter-offensive." Separately, however, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office released a statement Friday about a meeting he had with his senior military staff, and it noted that "the participants of the meeting focused on measures to prevent the leakage of information regarding the plans of the defense forces of Ukraine."

The leaked classified information about the US and NATO plans for Ukraine might have been caused by US military and government officials frustrated with the Biden administration's "demand for a US victory against Russia, where none is possible,” Karen Kwiatkowski, retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik.

The fact that they weren't released to a journalist, but rather to a gamer or a gaming site was certainly strange. They were purportedly first posted on Discord - a messaging platform popular with gamers - and the noticeboard 4Chan. Moscow considered the possibility that the documents could be forgeries, disseminated to the media in order to lull the Kremlin into a false sense of security about Ukraine’s military capabilities. “Because the US is a party in the conflict [in Ukraine] and is essentially waging a hybrid war against us, such tricks to deceive the enemy, meaning Russia, are possible,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters.

A cursory examination of the contents of the documents reveals little that could not be ascertained through a careful evaluation of publicly released information. While some attention has been given to specific data sets, such as the expenditure rates of HIMARS munitions by Ukraine, the fact is that the Russian military could collect this information and draw its own conclusions. The same holds true for just about all the data contained in the documents — a competent Russian military intelligence officer would be able to produce similar documents when assessing the US/NATO/Ukrainian preparations for a spring counteroffensive.

The document states that, of the nine supposedly to be trained up to US and NATO standards by March 31 and April 30, five of Kiev's brigades had zero training: these are the 82nd Airborne, the 32nd, 117th, and 118th Territorial Defense, as well as the 21st separate mechanized. Even if only two or three companies in these brigades were trained, and self-preparation wasn't completed, their level of training would be zero. At the same time, the highest percentage of readiness was recorded only in the 47th mechanized(40%) and the 46th airborne assault (60%).

According to the New York Times, the Pentagon is investigating the leak while the White House is “working to get them deleted.” Twitter owner Elon Musk appears to have confirmed the pressure campaign, sarcastically commenting, “Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet – that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”

The plan gave somewhat perplexing figures for military equipment. For example, out of 109 M2 Bradley BMPs sent to armed forces, for some reason only 99 are to participate in the offensive. Moreover, the vehicles are not distributed among the brigades and only assigned to one formation – Kiev's 47th mechanized brigade, which doesn't have heavy tanks. Rather than Soviet T-72s or T-64BVs, this grouping has only Slovak T-55Ss with 105mm guns, which are difficult to use in a large-scale offensive.

There hadn't been a leak of this nature since Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine began, over 13 months ago. It is noteworthy that the published plans contain not only a schedule for supplying Ukrainian units with NATO weapons and ammunition, but also information about the structure of the brigades and battalions allegedly preparing for the offensive.

The document, dated March 1, says Kiev's brigades need 253 tanks, more than 380 infantry fighting vehicles and APCs, 480 vehicles, 147 artillery pieces, and 571 HMMWV armored vehicles to carry out the offensive. The probable locations of Russian units, indicated on the combat map in red, appear to have been collected from open sources. Several pro-Kiev resources that track military operations contain almost identical information.

Also, the ratios of killed and wounded for the Ukrainian and Russian Armed Forces which initially appeared in these ‘secret plans’ have since been changed. When first posted, the losses for the Ukrainian side were underestimated at about 16,500 –17,000 people. Then (probably to be more realistic), they increased almost fivefold, up to 65,000 – 75,000. At the same time, the numbers given for Russia's purported losses of vehicles and equipment coincide with data published by Kiev's Ministry of Defense.

Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, wrote on his Telegram channel that the data published on social networks is untrue and has nothing to do with Kyiv's real plans. However, according to media reports, at a later meeting of the headquarters of the supreme commander, chaired by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the issue of preventing leaks of information about the plans of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was considered.

The New York Times reported on the investigation by the Pentagon of the data leak on the Internet, which describes the state of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the US and NATO programs to strengthen them. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov , commenting on the incident, told CNN that Moscow has no doubt that Washington and the North Atlantic Alliance are directly or indirectly involved in the conflict. A senior Ukrainian official said that the leaks appeared to be a Russian ploy to discredit a counteroffensive. And the Russian bloggers warned against trusting any of the information, which one blogger said could be the work of “Western intelligence in order to mislead our command.”

The leak of classified military documents about US and NATO plans to build up a Ukrainian military ahead of Ukraine's planned spring counteroffensive could be part of a targeted disinformation campaign. This opinion was expressed on 07 April 2023 by British cybersecurity expert Colonel Philip Ingram on Sky News. According to him, the documents contain information about the timing of the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which "may be useful" to Russia. As the colonel noted, "leaks of this kind are extremely unusual," however, due to the existence of several versions of documents on this topic, it is likely that this is a deliberate stuffing. Ingram said that the situation with the leakage of classified information reminds him of Operation Minced Meat during the Second World War.

Then the British disinformation operation was aimed at convincing the German command of the existence of Allied plans to invade Greece and Sardinia in mid-1943, while the true goal of the Allied forces was a landing in Sicily. As a result of a staged plane crash, fake "secret documents" about the plans of the Allies came to Germany: they were found in a suitcase attached to the wrist of the corpse of an allegedly British officer, who washed up on the shores of Spain. Within a few days, the Spanish authorities handed over to Germany the information that came into their possession.

At the same time, Ingram stressed that if genuine Pentagon documents were made public, then this situation would be a "major shame" for the US authorities. At the same time, the colonel expressed the opinion that the leak of documents is unlikely to affect the plans for the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, since in the end it is the Ukrainian command that will determine the appropriate place and time to start offensive operations.