A 21-year-old US national guardsman was charged with leaking a trove of classified United States government documents as he made his first appearance in court.
Jack Teixeira was arrested yesterday following a week-long probe into one of the most damaging leaks of secrets since the 2013 dump of National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden.
He was charged with the "unauthorised retention and transmission of national defense information" at a short hearing in Boston and appeared in federal court wearing a brown khaki jumpsuit.
He is also accused of the "unauthorised removal and retention of classified documents or material".
Each offense can carry up to 10 years in prison.
Mr Teixeira only spoke twice during the brief proceeding, answering "yes" when asked if he understood his right to remain silent.
He also confirmed that he had filled out a financial affidavit, which the judge said shows he will qualify to be represented by a federal public defender.
The embarrassing security breach had revealed US concerns about weaknesses in Ukraine's military and pointed to the US spying on allies including Israel and South Korea.
Mr Teixeira appeared before a judge at Massachusetts federal court in Boston at 10.00am (3pm Irish time). He was not required to enter a plea and was detained pending a detention hearing set for next Wednesday.
He is suspected of posting the documents, some dated as recently as early March, to a private chat group on the social media platform Discord.
The New York Times reported that Mr Teixeira was the leader of the group called Thug Shaker Central and reportedly posted the documents under the nickname "OG".
He first wrote down the contents of classified documents to share with the group, but later began taking photos, telling other members not to share them, according to the Washington Post.
Some of the documents later appeared on other sites, including Twitter, 4Chan and Telegram.
Military family
Investigators have not yet suggested what Mr Teixeira's motive was.
He enlisted with the US Air Force National Guard in September 2019 and was an IT and communications specialist who reached the rank of airman first class - the third-lowest for enlisted air force personnel.
The leak has raised questions about why someone in such a junior position had access to such potentially damaging secrets.
Friends of Mr Teixeira described him to the Washington Post as a devout Catholic and libertarian who is interested in guns.
The newspaper reported that he was from a family with decades of military service.
His father spent 34 years in the same military unit as his son while Mr Teixeira's mother worked for non-profit organisations that support veterans.
Mr Teixeira's dramatic arrest at his home in the southern Massachusetts town of North Dighton was broadcast live on US TV networks.
Helicopter footage of the operation showed the suspect dressed in red shorts and a T-shirt with his hands behind his head, backing slowly toward rifle-armed, camouflage-clad law enforcement personnel who took him into custody.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters that Mr Teixeira had been arrested "in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorised removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information".
Assessing damage
President Joe Biden, who is on a four-day tour of Ireland, said he was not overly concerned about the leak.
"I'm concerned that it happened, but there is nothing contemporaneous that I'm aware of," Mr Biden told reporters.
A man named Jack Teixeira was promoted to Airman 1st Class in July, according to a post on the 102nd Intelligence Wing's official Facebook page. The unit did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
A number of countries have questioned the veracity of some of the leaked documents, including Britain, which said there was "a serious level of inaccuracy" in the information.
US officials believe most of the materials are genuine. Some, however, appear to have been altered to show inflated estimates for Ukrainian battlefield casualties in the war with Russia as well as understated numbers for Russian forces.
Other documents include an assessment that France is likely to struggle to achieve security goals in west and central Africa, and information about Brazilian officials' plan to visit Moscow in April to discuss a Ukraine mediation scheme.
According to a leaked Pentagon document, Serbia has agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or has sent them already, despite the country's professed neutrality in the Ukraine war.
A 'deliberate, criminal act'
In the WikiLeaks case, the leaker - US Army Private First Class Chelsea Manning - was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Democratic President Barack Obama later commuted her sentence.
The Justice Department opened a formal criminal probe last week into the current leaks, after a referral from the US Department of Defense.
The leak was a "deliberate, criminal act," the Pentagon said, adding that the military had taken steps to review distribution lists and ensure people receiving information had a need to know.
It was not clear whether Mr Teixeira had yet secured legal representation.
The number of documents leaked is likely to be over 100.The US is still fighting to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from London to face criminal charges in connection with the 2010 leak.
