In September 2019, Jonathan Teixeira joined the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard as a Cyber Transport Systems journeyman. He was stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod. In July 2022, he was promoted to airman first class and held a Top Secret security clearance. Despite his low rank, he had access to classified information, given Teixeira’s responsibility for maintaining Top Secret computer networks.

In early April 2023, Teixeira was alleged to have repeatedly shared classified information in a chat group called “Thug Shaker Central” on Discord. Reports suggest that he was the chatroom administrator and that there were between two dozen and fifty members. One member allegedly posted dozens of pictures of classified documents on another Discord server on February 28, 2023. After the documents appeared on Russian-language Telegram channels, The New York Times reported the leak. On April 21, The New York Times reported that an account with similar characteristics as Teixeira’s online profile had shared summaries of classified information and likely shared photographs of documents with a Discord chat group of about 600 members from about February 2022 until about March 2023.

On April 13, 2023, the FBI arrested Teixeira at his mother’s residence in Dighton. The next day, he was charged with two offenses: violating the Espionage Act of 1917 by retaining and transmitting national defense information without authorization and unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. The first charge carries a maximum sentence of ten years, and the second charge carries a maximum sentence of five years. Teixeira is represented by counsel from the federal public defender’s office, and his detention hearing is scheduled tomorrow (April 27). He has not entered a plea yet.