WASHINGTON
\nThe FBI on Thursday arrested Jack Douglas Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the U.S. Air National Guard, over the leaks online of classified documents that embarrassed Washington with allies around the world.
\nFederal agents in an armored car and military gear swooped in on Teixeira, dressed in gym shorts, a T-shirt and trainers, at his home in Dighton, Massachusetts, a mostly wooded town of 8,000 about 50 miles (80 km) south of Boston.
\nThe arrest comes a week after the leaks first became widely known, setting Washington on edge about the damage they may have caused. The episode embarrassed the U.S. by revealing its spying on allies and purported Ukrainian military vulnerabilities.
\nThe leak of documents, posted largely on social media sites, was believed to be the most serious security breach since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010.
\nTeixeira was an airman 1st class at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, according to his service record. He joined the Air National Guard in 2019 and worked as a \u201cCyber Transport Systems Journeyman,\u201d or an IT specialist.
\nAttorney General Merrick Garland told reporters Teixeira was wanted \u201cin connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information.\u201d
\nThe FBI said its agents had conducted \u201cauthorized law enforcement activity at a residence in North Dighton, Massachusetts.\u201d
\nAerial news video showed Teixeira with his hands laced behind his head, walking backward toward the armored car with one officer watching from the turret. He was handcuffed and placed in the back of the vehicle. Garland said he was taken into custody \u201cwithout incident.\u201d
\nThe Justice Department did not say what charges Teixeira would face, although they will likely involve criminal charges of willfully retaining and transmitting national defense information.
\nBrandon Van Grack, a former Justice Department national security prosecutor now with the law firm Morrison Foerster, said the likely charges could carry up to 10 years\u2019 imprisonment, even if Teixeira did not intend to cause harm.
\n\u201cThis is someone who is facing on the higher end of exposure for years in prison … because the leaks were so damaging,\u201d Van Grack said.
\nDefense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement a Pentagon task force had been \u201cworking around the clock to assess and mitigate any damage.\u201d Teixeira was expected to appear in court on Friday, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in Boston said.
\nA police road block on the way to the house where Teixeira was arrested kept neighbors away from their homes. One was Dick Treacy, who said he saw officers arriving as he left to go shopping in the early afternoon.
\n\u201cThere were about six to eight army guys with rifles walking around,\u201d Treacy said. \u201cThis is a very quiet area.\u201d
\nEddy Souza, 22, said he grew up nearby and that he knew Jack Teixeira when both attended Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School several years ago.
\nSouza said Teixeira had expressed no extremist sentiments when they were last in touch several years ago.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s a good kid, not a troublemaker, just a quiet guy,\u201d Souza said. \u201cIt sounds like it was a stupid kid\u2019s mistake.\u201d
\nAlthough the leak only garnered widespread attention after an April 6 story in the New York Times, journalists have found evidence that the documents \u2013 or at least some of them \u2013 had been floating around on social media as far back as March or even January.
\nBellingcat, the Washington Post and The New York Times have traced the documents\u2019 earliest appearance to a defunct server on the instant messaging site Discord. In a chat group on the site, Teixeira went by the handle OG and was admired by the group\u2019s mostly young members, who shared a love for guns and military gear.
\nThe Justice Department opened a formal criminal probe last week, after a referral from the Defense Department, which called the leak a \u201cdeliberate, criminal act.\u201d
\nReuters has reviewed more than 50 of the documents, labeled \u201cSecret\u201d and \u201cTop Secret\u201d but has not independently verified their authenticity. The number of documents leaked is likely to be over 100.
\nA number of countries have questioned the veracity of some of the leaked documents, including Britain, which said there was \u201ca serious level of inaccuracy\u201d in the information.
\nThe leaks revealed information about allies including Israel, South Korea and Turkey.
\nU.S. 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON The FBI on Thursday arrested Jack Douglas Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the U.S. Air National Guard, over the leaks online of classified documents that embarrassed Washington with allies around the world. Federal agents in an armored car and military gear swooped in on Teixeira, dressed in gym shorts, a T-shirt and trainers, at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-325871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n