Diggton, Mass. –
After being accused of leaking top secret documents, the Massachusetts Air National Guard decided to join the military at a young age. Recently, however, he has expressed his disillusionment with conscription.
Jacques Teixeira, 21, was indicted in US District Court in Boston on Friday on charges of unauthorized deletion and retention, national defense and retention of classified information — a violation that caused an international outcry and exposed candid US assessments of the war in Ukraine and elsewhere. Secrets hidden from the public. . The investigative judge ordered Teixeira detained until next week’s hearing.
Teixeira grew up in Dayton, a rural community south of Boston dotted with single-family homes interspersed with small farms. Her mother’s house is down a long lane in the heavy woods. The florist, who sometimes places a cart of flowers on the side of the road, sells bouquets in honor.
Two classmates told the Boston Globe that Teixeira revered the military and showed an early interest in joining. Focus particularly on the history of war and weapons.
“From an early age, I remember he would have had a book, I think, on American military aircraft and weapons, like a real big textbook,” John Powell told The Globe.
Although Powell remembers being bullied in college, Teixeira told the newspaper that the young man was an optimist and “lover”, with a particularly close relationship with his father-in-law, an Air Force veteran.
Her high school classmate, Kailani Reese, told Teixeira, while her classmate, Sarah Arnold, told the AP she remembers him as quiet and reserved to himself: “She was very quiet” and gave off “feelings of loneliness.”
Teixeira enlisted in the Air National Guard in September 2019, according to military records. He graduated from Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School the following year, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the school to close and go virtual.
During the pandemic, Teixeira has developed a close relationship with other members of a chat room on the social media platform Discord, where members of the group said the leaks emerged. Video game enthusiasts and others use the chat app for online communication.
A member of the Discord chat group spoke to The Associated Press about the conversations, but declined to be named, citing concerns about his personal safety. Called “Thug Shaker Central,” the group attracted people who talked about their favorite types of weapons and shared memes and jokes, some of them racist and anti-Semitic, the person told the Associated Press.
The collection also included an ongoing discussion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Discord member who confirmed the OG is Teixeira For months, a member called “OG” has been posting tons of classified documents.
Teixeira liked to talk about weapons, was a committed Christian and often prayed with band members, his colleague said. In recent months, Teixeira has become disillusioned with the US military and has begun to express “regret joining,” the person said. “He even said he would kick my ass if I thought about joining him.”
Teixeira was also concerned that the federal government was becoming too powerful, according to the Discord user.
The chat group member said he didn’t know why Teixeira was recruiting, but thought he needed the money to attend college. He added that OG is good at creating memes.
“He was really good at his job. He was really good at, you know, Photoshop,” the band member told the AP, adding that Teixeira was “never a very serious guy, and usually everything was just like laughing and laughing.”
Teixeira was recently promoted to Airman First Class and assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, where his work as a Cyber Transport Systems Flight Person is listed.
Despite his relatively low rank, the technology position was said to have given Teixeira the responsibility of maintaining computer networks with access to classified information. Teixeira began active duty in October 2021, serving full time at the base, which is located in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Teixeira was described by members of the discord group as someone who sought to show off, rather than being motivated by a desire to inform the public about US military operations or influence US policy.
Without any evidence, some right-wing figures have begun hailing Teixeira as someone who is out to expose the Biden administration and prevent further US involvement in the war in Ukraine.
On Twitter, US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, using the wrong first name, posted that Teixeira was “white, male, Christian and anti-war. That makes him an enemy of the Biden regime.”
The Discord member told the Associated Press that he does not believe Teixeira leaked any documents to undermine the US government or for ideological reasons.
“If I had to give it a scale, there would be nerds out there who would like to look at certain things and compare and contrast and kind of joke about it,” he said, adding that “at the end of the day, I mean we’re just trying to have fun.”
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Merchant reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jennifer McDermott in Dayton, Massachusetts, Ali Swenson in Seattle, and Alan Suderman, Michael Pesker and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report.
