Judge rules suspected Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira stays in jail ahead of trial

A federal judge ruled Friday that Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman accused of leaking confidential Pentagon documents online, will remain in federal custody pending his trial.

Judge David Hennessy of the US District Court in Massachusetts granted the government’s request to detain Teixeira and denied Teixeira’s attorney’s request to release him on bail. prosecutors submitted an application Earlier this week he urged Hennessy to hold Teixeira, saying foreign opponents were “mouth-watering” at the prospect of helping him evade the US government.

The 21-year-old was accused of the unauthorized storage and transmission of national defense information and the unauthorized removal and storage of classified information under the Espionage Act. He has pleaded not guilty and faces a significant prison sentence if convicted.

Prosecutors suspected that Teixeira’s character was not what he portrayed in the military recruitment process. Teixeira’s lawyer claimed that Teixeira’s case could not be compared to other cases under the Espionage Act, arguing that when arrested, Teixeira “remained at his mother’s house and peacefully submitted to the arrest when law enforcement arrived.”

Federal authorities had been searching for the origin of classified notes first surfaced on the social media site Discord, which revealed sensitive government secrets about US interests abroad, including detailed information about the war in Ukraine.

The government claims that Teixeira, who held a permit allowing him to see top secret and classified confidential information, had obtained the confidential government documents in early 2023.