LEAKS & GEEKS PART 2
More US secrets online
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 Times report.
The leaker, believed to be the 21-year-old airman (inset), claimed to be posting information from the National Security Agency, the CIA and other intelligence outfits.
“Saw a pentagon report saying that 1/3rd of the force is being used to invade,” the leaker wrote in one Discord message, less than 48 hours after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the Times.
“I have a little more than open source info. Perks of being in a USAF intel unit,” the leaker said in another message.
In a post on March 27, 2022, the leaker revealed that Russia planned to remove its forces near Kyiv.
“Some ‘big’ news,” they wrote. “There may be a planned withdrawal of the troops west of Kiev, as in all of them.”
The leaker 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 individual 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 Times.