Alleged Pentagon documents leaker Jack Teixeira was warned twice to stop taking notes on classified information — and bragged about breaking the rules to his friends, prosecutors said.
In court papers filed Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers claimed the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman jotted down top-secret information during confidential meetings that he would then spread across a social media channel dedicated to video games and guns.
“It is clear that the dissemination of the classified national defense information that the Defendant unlawfully posted was even more widespread and diverse than previously known,” the documents state.
“It is also clear that the Defendant publicly exalted in the breadth and sensitivity of the information that he was disclosing … The Defendant boasted about the wide swath of classified information he had access to by virtue of his position.”
Teixeira, who worked as a cyber transport systems specialist, was arrested last month and charged under the Espionage Act with unauthorized retention and transmission of classified national defense information for allegedly sharing hundreds of highly classified Pentagon documents concerning national security and the war in Ukraine on the gaming platform Discord over the course of several months.
According to the Wednesday filing, one of the social media platforms servers had at least 150 users — including overseas individuals — at the time Teixeira allegedly shared confidential information, though prosecutors believe “many more” users have since flocked to the channel since his arrest.
In one chat, the 21-year-old told his friends that he would post “a f–ck ton of information” about US intelligence in Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iran, China and more, the filing shows.
“Idgaf what they say I can or can’t share … [a]ll of the s–t I’ve told you guys I’m not supposed to,” he allegedly told other users, implying he understood the unlawfulness of his disclosures.
Teixeira was admonished by his superiors in September 2022 for reportedly scribbling down notes during a confidential meeting and slipping the piece of paper into his pocket.
He was given a cease-and-desist order preventing him from conducting “any deep dives into classified
intelligence information,” but Teixeira was caught taking notes a second time just one month later.
In February 2023, Teixeira was again observed “viewing content that was not related to his duties,” prosecutors said.
The federal filing also claimed that Teixeira’s secret history as a potentially violent person proves that he was acting maliciously when he allegedly shared secret information on Discord.
Prosecutors pointed to a video published by the Washington Post of Teixeira using racial and ethnic slurs while “emptying the magazine of bullets” at a target.
He also allegedly said online that he wanted to murder a “ton of people” in the name of “culling the weak-minded” and talked about rigging an “assassination van.”
“There is every indication that the Defendant is skilled and experienced at hiding these unsavory aspects of his character,” the filing states.
Teixeira, who has not yet entered a plea, claimed he never intended for any of the information he shared to be “widely disseminated.”
A ruling on Teixeira’s pre-trial detention is expected Friday.
