Jack Teixeira may have shared classified info since start of Ukraine war

Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira may have been distributing secret intelligence related to the war in Ukraine earlier and to a larger audience than previously known, according to a report. 

The New York Times reported on Friday that a Discord user matching the profile of Teixeira began sharing classified information in a chat group with roughly 600 members just days after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

The newly discovered information details Russian and Ukrainian casualty numbers lists the activities of the Kremlin’s spy agencies and includes updates on aid being provided to Kyiv, according to the report. 

The user, believed to be the 21-year-old airman, claimed to be posting information from the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence outfits.

“Saw a pentagon report saying that 1/3rd of the force is being used to invade,” the user wrote in one Discord message, less than 48 hours after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the New York Times. 

“I have a little more than open source info. Perks of being in a USAF intel unit,” the user said in another message. 

In a post on March 27, 2022, the user revealed that Russia planned to remove its forces near Kyiv.

“Some ‘big’ news,” the user wrote. “There may be a planned withdrawal of the troops west of Kiev, as in all of them.” 

The user claimed to have obtained the information on “an NSA site.”

Two days later, Russian officials announced they were pulling troops away from the Ukrainian capital. 

Teixeira had previously been accused of leaking classified documents on a different and much smaller Discord group of about 50 members, known as Thug Shaker Central, from which members apparently distributed the documents to other groups and websites.

It’s unclear if authorities are aware of the classified documents posted on the larger Discord server – which the user believed to be Teixeira only stopped posting to last month.

Teixeira was arrested at his mother’s house in Massachusetts on April 13 after being implicated in the leak of a trove of classified documents by the New York Times. 

Though Teixeira had been in the military for fewer than four years, his job as a cyber transport systems journeyman working on and protecting the infrastructure behind sensitive communication channels required him to have the highest level of security clearance – giving access to the sensitive intelligence files. 

The Discord leaks have been described as the biggest national security breach in at least 10 years.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a 45-day review of Pentagon document security practices earlier this week, which could result in stricter measures for receiving security clearances. 

The Air Force has also stripped the Air National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing of its mission as the service investigates how Teixeira allegedly accessed and published classified material.

“The 102nd Intelligence Wing is not currently performing its assigned intelligence mission,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told The Post on Wednesday.