A new report published by the New York Times has revealed the identity of the leader of an online group where hundreds of photographs of classified U.S. military documents were leaked as a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard who was stationed at Fort Bragg when the information was posted. This is incredibly shameful behavior. No doubt this soldier knew that what he was doing was both wrong and extremely dangerous.
“The newspaper identified the leader as Jack Teixeira, of Bristol, Mass, who allegedly oversaw a private Discord server called ‘Thug Shaker Central’ that was comprised of a couple dozen like-minded men and boys,” the Daily Wire reported. “The report said that U.S. officials want to talk Teixeira because they believe that he ‘might have information relevant to the investigation.'”
“The New York Times showed up to Teixeira’s family home and was informed by his mother that he was a member of the Air National Guard and that he changed his phone number in the last few days,” the report continued.
The Times then stated that an individual who looked to be Teixiera drove up to the home later on, and that’s when the Times asked him if he was willing to have a conversation with them. A man on the driveway informed them that was not a good idea.
“He needs to get an attorney if things are flowing the way they are going right now,” the man went on to tell the Times. “The Feds will be around soon, I’m sure.”
Not long after the report was published by the Times, Reuters said, “An Air National guardsman suspected of leaking classified Pentagon documents will be arrested today in Massachusetts.”
BREAKING: An Air National guardsman suspected of leaking classified Pentagon documents will be arrested today in Massachusetts pic.twitter.com/7U3tuDvqsu
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 13, 2023
A member who belonged to the group spokes to the Washington Post and informed them that the alleged leaker, referred to as “OG,” had, on several occasions expressed anti-government sentiment, though they made it clear they did not feel he was attempting to provide any help to foreign powers, noting he was probably just trying to show off.
“If you had classified documents, you’d want to flex at least a little bit, like hey, I’m the big guy,” one member commented, going on later to add, “I would definitely not call him a whistleblower. I would not call OG a whistleblower in the slightest.”
“The documents that were leaked contained information about battlefield conditions in Ukraine, information on foreign adversary’s weapons systems, assessments on how deeply U.S. intelligence had penetrated into the Russian military, information on Egypt planning to sell weapons to Russia, and much more,” the DW report said.
The report also stated that there were a number of forensic clues that were left behind by the leaker that would prove to be very useful for U.S. law enforcement in identifying who the suspect is. Obviously, this person was not someone who really cares about authority or getting caught. Otherwise, far more precautions would have been taken to ensure no possible trail was left behind that might result in being identified.
“OG’s continued leaking of classified material eventually leaked out of the discord server after one of the members started sharing the images on February 28 with another Discord server affiliated with a YouTuber that has nearly a quarter of a million subscribers. Several days later, on March 4, more of the images started to appear on a different Discord server dedicated to the Minecraft video game,” the report added.
The leak remained undetected by authorities in the United States for another month when classified information began to pop up on Russian Telegram channels and 4chan, and eventually Twitter.
It’s being reported that OG freaked out after he found out the pictures had been leaked, asking members to “keep low and delete any information that could possibly relate to him,” another individual in the group said.
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