Not Russian intelligence or even a secret agent.
The man who revealed a series of top secret Pentagon and CIA documents has been identified as 21-year-old Jack Teixeira. Until a few days ago, Mr. Teixeira worked for the Massachusetts National Guard and, in his spare time, he liked to play PC games with friends – while occasionally revealing state secrets to them.
This was uncovered by two separate investigations by the Washington Post and New York Times. On Wednesday, the Post published a lengthy article with the anonymous testimony of a teenager who was a member of the Discord group – a social media site used mainly by online gamers – on which the mysterious “OG” (Teixeira’s nickname) allegedly leaked the secret files. The teenager claims that Teixeira often communicated sensitive information with him and about twenty other users of the exclusive Discord channel “Thug Shaker Central,” where “OG” served as moderator.
The Times investigation shed further light on the identity of the leaker, finding that Teixeira is an airman who enlisted in the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
The 21-year-old allegedly used his role to view documents and take them home – then shared them with the circle of virtual friends he had bonded with during the lockdown. However, the 30 or so chat members on Discord also included citizens of Russia and Ukraine – who all together used the social media to pray, joke, tell (sometimes racist) jokes, and apparently also analyze U.S. military secrets.
At first, OG used to “unwind” the contents of documents by hand, while later he began sharing photographs. The documents were marked “OG” with intelligence jargon such as “NOFORN,” indicating that information should not be shared with foreign nationals.
The Washington Post also claims to have viewed a video in which the man appeared at a shooting range, holding a large rifle and shouting a series of racist and anti-Semitic slurs at the camera. The newspaper writes that it also reviewed some 300 photos of classified documents, most of which have not been made public. These include some documents written by OG, an audio recording of the boy speaking to his classmates, and copies of chats and photographs.
The leak raised a fuss about the Pentagon and the CIA, as well as Washington’s international alliances. For example, the documents unearthed Egypt’s alleged intention to sell 40,000 missiles to Russia, but also Russian mercenaries’ request for weapons to Turkey (a NATO country), as well as sensitive details about U.S. aid to troops in Kyiv and alleged attempts by U.S. intelligence services to spy on Ukraine, Israel and South Korea.
Both the Justice Department and the Pentagon have launched investigations into the revelations and have not commented on the scoop on Teixeira’s identity.
