Airman accused of leaking defense info expected to plead guilty

Jack Teixeira, the National Guardsman accused of leaking thousands of classified documents on the gaming site Discord, is set to plead guilty. Prosecutors revealed in a court filing that the airman will change his plea from not guilty to guilty in federal court on Monday, March 3.

Teixeira faced a potential maximum sentence of 60 years for charges related to the improper handling and public disclosure of national defense secrets.

Prosecutors said there was no evidence of espionage, rather, Teixeira wanted to impress people on the site with his insider information. The 22-year-old, who was stationed at an air base in Cape Cod, has been in custody since his arrest last spring at his mother’s home in Massachusetts.

The leak, considered the worst U.S. national security breach since WikiLeaks in 2010, involved highly classified details on Discord about U.S. allies and adversaries, including Ukraine’s air defenses and Israel’s Mossad. In response, the U.S. Air Force moved to discipline 15 personnel linked to the leak allegedly by Teixeira.

An Air Force Inspector General report revealed that members of Teixeira’s unit and leadership were aware of up to four instances of his questionable activity, with a few having a fuller understanding of his intelligence-seeking behavior yet “intentionally failed to report the full details of these security concerns/incidents.”