Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old arrested by the FBI on charges of being the Pentagon Leaks mole, could appear in court as early as today.
The Washington Post writes it.
Enlisting in 2019, Teixeira
worked as a computer technician
to technology support at the Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
The base is home to the 102nd Intelligence Wing, whose mission is to "provide precision intelligence, command and control worldwide with trained and experienced Airmen for military expeditionary combat support and national security." ".
According to the Washington Post, the airman had access to the Pentagon's internal computer network for top secret information, called the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (Jwics): this gave him the ability to read and potentially print classified documents at the same level as many of the leaked ones.
Meanwhile, the
FBI is investigating the young man's life
, whom a friend describes as a patriotic, devout Catholic, gun lover, and doubtful of America's future.
In the online platform Discord, where he posted the top secret cards, he used pseudonyms like 'jackthedripper' (Jack the dripper) and 'excalibureffect' (Excalibur Effect).
Usa, the show arrest of the alleged mole of the 'Pentagon leaks'
"An all-out investigation is underway with the intelligence community and the Justice Department and we are getting closer" to the manager,
Joe Biden
said from Dublin commenting on the Pentagon leaks.
A few hours later
the New York Times burned everyone on time and revealed the identity of the alleged mole,
i.e. the leader of the small group of the Discord platform for video game enthusiasts where the top secret documents were posted which then went around the world.
This is Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman from the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts National Guard
, promoted to 'Airman First Class' last July.
The New York Times identified him through his profile on the platform and other digital details, such as the interior of his childhood home - posted on social media in family photos - which coincide with those in the margins of the photos of the classified documents made leak out.
Teixeira's mother, Dawn, confirmed her son's enrollment in that department and said she recently worked nights at a Cape Cod base, changing phone numbers in recent days.
The FBI immediately searched his home and in the evening he was arrested
: CNN broadcast the images almost in real time,
advancing backwards with his hands on the back of his neck, while some agents armed to the teeth pointed their weapons at him protected by an armored car.
The Pentagon called the release of classified papers "a deliberate criminal act," while Biden said he was "concerned."
However, it is not immediately clear whether a young airman in his position could have access to such highly classified documents, but the NYT explains that government officials with security clearances often receive them via daily emails which are then automatically forwarded to other people.
His true intentions must then be clarified, because
from the first reconstructions he almost seems like a mole for fun, someone who had begun to post top secret papers to boast of being an insider and to indoctrinate a group of 20-30 people younger than he
with whom he had bonded online since the pandemic.
Then one of them, a teenager, posted them on other Discord servers (like the one affiliated with youtuber 'wow_mao'), bouncing them on Telegram, 4chan and Twitter.
Before the New York Times revealed the identity of the mole, the Washington Post had interviewed some members of the group and sketched out an identikit of their leader, who called himself 'Og': a man in his 20s, with access to a military base and with a passion for weapons.
A passion shared with other members, including foreigners, including Russians and Ukrainians, on a platform that has increasingly become a meeting place for spies.
The WP also saw a video of 'Og' at a shooting range, wearing safety glasses, ear muffs and a large rifle: he yelled a series of racist and anti-Semitic slurs at the camera, then fired several shots at a target.
"He's fit. He's strong. He's armed. He's trained. Pretty much everything you can expect from some sort of crazy movie," noted one of the members.
The group whose server he controlled was called 'Thug Shaker Central', with a racist allusion, even if its members deny such implications and defend their leader.
“I definitely wouldn't call him a mole,” one of them says.
Another assures that Og was not hostile to the US government and was not working on behalf of any country's interests.
ANSA Agency
Biden, secret files? Worried but I don't see any risks in the short term
Joe Biden said he was "concerned" about the leak of classified American documents but does not see any immediate risks.
The president recalled that a full investigation is underway.
'We're getting close,' he added.
"He's not a Russian agent, he's not a Ukrainian agent," he swears, also dismissing comparisons to Edward Snowden.
He would attest to this by the name of the room on the server where he posted the documents,
'Bear vs. Pig',
derogatory references in his view to both Russia and Ukraine and a confirmation that he had taken no side in the conflict.
But Og took a dark view of government, speaking of the United States, and especially law enforcement and the intelligence community, as a sinister force that seeks to subjugate citizens and keep them in the dark.
The man allegedly told his online companions that the government had been keeping horrific truths from the public and that he knew in advance of a planned massacre at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022 by a white supremacist. the murders happen so they can ask for a raise in funding, a conspiracy-flavored theory.
To betray some digital clues on the posted photos,
including the house bed, a bottle of Gorilla glue, a hunting magazine and a nail clipper.
Along with the print date.
ANSA Agency
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The chat by invitation on the Discord platform, on which the top secret American cards were revealed - the source told the Washington Post - was formed during the pandemic and gathered about twenty people, mostly teenagers, looking for company in the in the middle of the lockdown, united by a mutual love of guns, military equipment in general and faith in God. Most of the talk was about video games and similar topics, and nobody paid much attention when, last year, "a person who calling himself 'Og' posted a message in military jargon full of strange acronyms".
"The words were unfamiliar to most, and few people read that long post," the source said.
But the group - writes Wp - "revered Og,
the oldest leader of their tiny tribe, who claimed to know secrets the government kept from ordinary people." The mysterious child witness says he read Og's message carefully and "the hundreds of others who followed regularly for months" and which "appeared to be near-verbal transcripts of classified intelligence documents that Og indicated he brought home from his job at a "military base," which the chat member declined to identify.
Og said he spent at least part of his day inside a structure subjected to strict security measures, where cell phones and other electronic devices that could be used to steal top secret information were prohibited.
The story of the first source of the Discord chat was corroborated by a second, which described the alleged mole as a young man apparently in his 20s.
Both members said they knew Og's real name and the state where he lives and works, but declined to share this information with the Washington Post, which interviewed them, while the FBI investigates and the Pentagon has set up its own investigation. headed by a senior official.
