Keneci Channel
Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Douglas Teixeira,21, reportedly shared classified documents with a Discord group called "Thug Shaker Central" in recent months. The leaks gained wider attention when another member of the group shared the documents them in a public forum. FBI agents arrested the 21-year-old at home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, on Thursday.
The documents which Teixeira initially shared with the private group of 30 members, revealed some sensitive and unflattering details about Ukrainian war efforts against invading Russian military force. It also revealed some details contrary to the propaganda and lies about the war spread by the Biden administration.
One document from February revealed that Ukraine’s air defences could be out of missiles within the month, if their munition stocks haven’t already been depleted. Others have revealed just how deeply embedded American spy agencies are in the administrations of allies (Israel, South Korea, Ukraine) as well as enemies (Russia, China).
Perhaps the most strategically damaging detail that has emerged is the timetable for Ukraine’s long-awaited spring counteroffensive. According to one document, that effort to push Russian forces back toward their own country was to have begun on April 30 with 12 Ukrainian brigades.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Teixeira, 21, is being investigated for the "alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information."
The FBI reportedly claims it began surveilling Teixeira in connection with the leaks before Thursday, but were forced to accelerate their plans to arrest him after the New York Times identified him on Wednesday evening. Investigation is ongoing and authorities don't believe that the case ends with the 21-year-old and are looking at other who may be involved.
Teixeira, who joined the Air National Guard in September 2019, held the highest-level security clearance granted by the federal government for top secret information. His security clearance and access to classified government systems have since been revoked, according to another internal government document.
The 21-year-old was most recently stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base as a member of the of 102nd Intelligence Wing. He was promoted to Airman 1st Class last July, according to the unit.
The National Guard said in a statement it is aware of the "alleged role a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman may have played in the recent leak of highly-classified documents" from the Pentagon.
"The National Guard takes this issue very seriously and will support investigators," the National Guard said in a statement. "National security is our foremost priority and any attempt to undermine it compromises our values and degrades trust among our members, the public, allies and partners."
Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder called the leaks a "a deliberate criminal act," saying that distribution lists for classified information are being reviewed. "We entrust our members with a lot of responsibility at a very early age," he said at a press conference on Thursday.
The arrest of Teixeira who some critics call a whistleblower rather than a criminal, has put some far-left media outlets like New York Times(NYT) and Washington Post(WaPo), under scrutiny. They were criticized for acting as an arm of the Joe Biden administration instead of independent journalistic outlets.
Far-left media outlets aggressively sought to find and make Teixeira's identity public, painting him as a criminal. Critics argue that reporters at these far-left media outlets -- who favor America's involvement in Ukraine, openly fawn over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and want to protect Biden against any political backlash -- are more interested in outing the whistleblower, than focusing on the content of the leaked documents which contradict the many lies spread by European officials and the Biden administration about the war in Ukraine.
Teixeira, who the Times reported was known to his online pals as “O.G.” on a private social-media group dubbed Thug Shaker Central where members “came together over a shared love of online memes” and videogames.
The Post, which interviewed one of the teenage members of the group, said that O.G. initially wrote up the contents of the classified material and shared it with other members, but felt that his audience was not sufficiently appreciative of the material being presented to them.
The leaker then began posting photos of the documents to the group. Among them, the Post reported, were satellite imagery from the battlefield in Ukraine and close-up spy-plane photos of the Chinese spy balloon that was discovered floating across North America earlier this year.
Among the sensitive revelations in the leaked documents, is the presence of US and NATO special forces in Ukraine. Neither the US nor any European nation has declared war against Russia.
Pro-Ukraine left-wing politicians and officials in the west often claim that no western forces are present in the war-torn country. Conservatives and Republican members of of the US congress have called on Biden to push for a peaceful end to the war, and warned the administration against helping Ukraine escalate and prolong the war.
Other sensitive and unflattering revelations in the leaked document include reports that Ukraine is attacking Belarus; and that US is spying on top Ukrainian officials. It also reveals that Zelensky orders attacks inside Russia.
"I can barely put into words how dangerous and twisted it is that it is now the NYT and WashPost that does the FBI's job for it by hunting down leakers of classified information -- the people on whom real journalism depends -- working in tandem with state-funded Bellingcat," independent journalist and Rumble podcast host Glenn Greenwald wrote on Twitter. "If this leaker had published these documents under Trump, to show the Trump WH was lying about the US role in a major war, there's be a bust of him already unveiled outside NBC News's studios, a star turn on Colbert, and a ceremony where Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer hug him."
Responding to a tweet asking him about Teixeira's motivation, Greenwald noted that "Many of the documents he[Teixeira] caused to be disclosed are clearly in the public interest as they shed previously unknown light on the US role in Ukraine, the risks of the war, and their real view of it. That's what matters. We'll learn more about his motives as facts emerge."
Following the leaks, the Kremlin said on Wednesday that it didn’t know "like everyone else" the authenticity of the documents. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov official reportedly suggested that the leak may have been a deliberate act to "mislead the enemy."
"It's probably interesting for someone to look at these documents, if they are documents at all, or maybe they are fake, maybe this is a deliberate information dump," Ryabkov reportedly said. "Since the United States is a party to the [Ukraine] conflict and is in essence waging a hybrid war against us, it's possible such things are being done to mislead the enemy – that is the Russian Federation."
The leaked documents, dated to late February, state that systems like the S-300 make up some 89% of Ukraine's air defense capability.
Russia currently maintains a fleet of some 485 fighter jets, compared to Ukraine's 85. Should air defense systems go offline, the lopsided numbers game in the air would be Ukraine’s only means of trying to secure the sky over its troops.
Legal experts argue that the criminal case against Teixeira, appears to have none of the ethical underpinnings or digital sophistication that were the hallmarks of the Snowden affair, in which files stolen from the National Security Agency were released to expose the activities of U.S. intelligence agencies. Nor are there any indications that he took the sort of evasive measures that Snowden -- now a Russian citizen and Moscow resident -- took to avoid detection, arrest and capture.
Experts say Teixeira's actions look more like a case of boasting and bravado by a 'fratty' American serviceman to younger, impressionable members of an online community united by their shared love of videogames. It appears the documents were posted online, they argue, in an attempt to impress, rather than to hinder an unjust cause or shame the Biden administration into changing course.