By Ruzeki, Natasha and Faith, Shadow News
North Dighton, Massachusetts— Jack Douglas Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, appears in federal court in Boston on Friday to face charges related to the leaking of classified documents on Discord, an online gaming chat platform.
Here is what we are covering:
- The National Guardsman faces charges under the Espionage Act.
- The suspect’s online gaming friends say the classified documents were shared to show them what war really is.
- A trail of digital evidence led to a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman.
- What is Discord, the app where the leaked documents were found.
Here’s what we know:
On Thursday, the FBI investigators arrested a 21-year-old air national guardsman linked to a trove of leaked classified U.S. documents. The intel has upended relations with American allies and exposed weaknesses in the Ukrainian military.
In a brief statement, the US Attorney General Merick Garland said the Airman Teixeira will face charges under the Espionage Act.
The Act criminalizes the unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of closely held documents related to the national defense that could be used to harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary.
Each such document would be its own charge; a conviction carries a penalty of up to ten years in prison per count.
These top secret documents were first leaked on Discord.
Discord is a 8-year-old social media and messaging platform popular among young people and video game players.
The platform has increasingly become a mainstream part of the internet.
In 2015, Discord was introduced as a chat application that users could use to communicate with one another while playing games.
By late 2022, Discord had almost 200 million active users monthly.
Here's what you need to know about the U.S. classified documents leaked by Jack Douglas Teixeira:
The posting on social media of several highly classified U.S. intelligence documents might be the beginning of what could turn out to be the most serious U.S. intelligence breach in more than a decade.
After last week's major leak, a Shadow News review has found dozens more classified documents posted in early March in the internet shortly after the documents were drafted.
The content of those additional documents are the U.S. intelligence about the Ukraine war and in other parts of the world. And the disclosure has raised diplomatic issues since the U.S. intelligence has been spying not only on its adversaries, but also on allies.
The leak triggered a criminal investigation by the Justice Department to try and find out who leaked the documents and why.
Here's what you need to know about what happened and what the documents contain.
What was posted on the internet are dozens of photographs of printouts of highly classified U.S. documents that show creases from having been folded.
Shadow News has been able to review 38 of these classified U.S. intelligence documents drafted in late February and on 1st and 2nd of March 2023.
The documents are a mix of tactical statistics and maps of the battlefield in Ukraine drafted by the Pentagon's Joint Staff.
Others are more strategic-level U.S. intelligence analyses that cover Ukraine's war with Russia and other regions of the world that seem to have been put together by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies.
Almost all the 38 leaked documents are classified as "Top Secret" and contain specific information about whether they can be shared with foreign allies. They also include how the information was obtained, including signals intercepts.
More than a dozen documents prepared by the Joint Staff describe the military situation in Ukraine on 1st March, especially around the battlefields of Bakhmut, Kharkiv and the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
They contain statistics about Ukrainian troop levels, the training of Ukrainian forces, equipment provided to Ukraine by the U.S. and other NATO members and casualty numbers.
One of the documents posted on social media last week was altered from the previous version posted on Discord in early March to reflect higher fatality numbers for Russian forces.
The bulk of the remaining documents were produced by the U.S. intelligence and are presented in a paragraph form.
They describe specific analytical intelligence for other regions of the world and include intelligence gathered from both adversaries and friendly countries.
The 38 documents reviewed by Shadow News use different formatting, styles and cover varying topics.
They include the dozen of slides about the battlefields of Ukraine that were apparently prepared by the Joint Staff.
Two of these leaked documents show that Ukraine's air defense systems are at risk of experiencing supply shortfalls in coming months.
Another slide outlines scenarios under which the U.S. could pressure Israel into providing Ukraine with lethal aid.
Other slides contain information providing specific casualty numbers for Ukraine and Russia, as well as highly specific information about the number of tanks, armored vehicles, helicopters and aircraft that have been destroyed or are available for combat.
Also available in the leaked documents is a two-page copy of the CIA worldwide intelligence summary for 2nd March 2023.
This copy of the CIA document includes analysis of the Russian Defense Ministry's views on supplying munitions to the Wagner Group, Iran readying for a space launch, South Korea's National Security Council concerned about the U.S. request to provide artillery ammunition to Ukraine, an update on the Nigerian elections and North Korea preparing for an intercontinental ballistic missile launch.
Another set of presumably highly classified documents provides more strategic-level intelligence about the United States' adversaries and allies. Among the details included in this apparent set of leaked documents is information that a pro-Russia hacking group has gained access to Canadian gas infrastructure.
There is also an assessment that a Ukrainian military strike deep inside Russia or targeting Russia's leaders could give China the opportunity to provide lethal aid to Russia.
This set also contains intelligence on North Korean preparations for an ICBM test flight and describes North Korea's display of ICBM launchers at a recent parade as overselling their actual capabilities.
Additionally, there is also an eight-page strategic analysis document where most of the contents appear to have been gleaned from intercepted communications, including descriptions of South Korea's National Security Council's internal discussions about the U.S. request to push artillery ammunition to Ukraine via a third country.
Indicative of how U.S. intelligence appears to have been able to penetrate Russia's internal communications, this set of documents includes specific information about Russia's plans in Ukraine and elsewhere.
For example, there are precise descriptions of Russian plans to carry out two separate aerial attacks in early March aimed at Ukrainian military targets and Ukrainian energy infrastructure and bridges.
There is a description of Russia's plans for combatting the tanks being sent to Ukraine by NATO countries by setting up a layered defense and training Russian troops on the tank's vulnerabilities.
This set of leaked documents also describes apparent plans by Russia's intelligence agency to conduct an influencing campaign in Africa to promote Russia's foreign policy.
The leaked documents show the U.S. has not only been spying on Russia, but also apparently on Ukraine. They describe what are said to be internal Ukrainian discussions about striking at Russian troop locations deployed to a region inside Russia.
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