UPDATE 2:12pm The NY Times reports the house of the suspect is being searched, and the Pentagon is doing a live briefing.
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Updated
April 13, 2023, 2:11 p.m. ET3 minutes ago
3 minutes ago
NORTH DIGHTON, Mass. — Around a half-dozen rifle-carrying F.B.I. agents on Thursday pushed onto the property of a 21-year-old air national guardsman who investigators believe is linked to a trove of leaked classified U.S. intelligence documents, which have upended relations with American allies and exposed weaknesses in the Ukrainian military.
A member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, the man is tied to an online group where the leaked documents first appeared. First identified by The New York Times as Jack Teixeira, he oversaw an online group named Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games….
From The NY Times:
Federal investigators are searching for the person who shared top secret documents that revealed government secrets about the Ukraine war.
The leader of a small online gaming chat group where a trove of classified U.S. intelligence documents leaked over the last few months is a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The national guardsman, whose name is Jack Teixeira, oversaw a private online group named Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games.
Two U.S. officials confirmed that investigators want to talk to Airman Teixeira about the leak of the government documents to the private online group. One official said Airman Teixeira might have information relevant to the investigation.
Federal investigators have been searching for days for the person who leaked the top secret documents online but have not identified Airman Teixeira or anyone else as a suspect. The F.B.I. declined to comment.
And:
The Times has been able to link Airman Teixeira to other members of the Thug Shaker Central group through his online gaming profile and other records. Details of the interior of Airman Teixeira’s childhood home — posted on social media in family photographs — also match details on the margins of some of the photographs of the leaked secret documents.
The Times also has established, through social media posts and military records, that Airman Teixeira is enlisted in the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Posts on the unit’s official Facebook page congratulated Airman Teixeira and colleagues for being promoted to Airman First Class in July 2022.
DISCLAIMER: Read the whole article (the link should penetrate the Times paywall). The identity of the leaker has yet to be confirmed, but the details in the article explain how the information in question could have been accessed by him.
Also see: Ukraine Update: The Washington Post article on the leaker may be the single worst article I've read by Mark Sumner. If the person described in The Washington Post article actually is the person named by The NY Times, their motivation in leaking the documents is not looking particularly honorable.
What you can learn from this article appears to be three things:
- The person who posted the images of classified information from February apparently worked on a military base, liked big guns, and liked to film himself shooting those guns when spraying racist and antisemitic statements. He also viewed the U.S. government as a “dark” and “sinister” force.
- He joined an online community filled with guys who also liked to talk about how they loved God and guns while making racist and antisemitic statements. Which might otherwise be known as a collection of white Christofascists with violent fantasies.
- Even though he shared dozens of highly classified documents with that community over a period of years, and went out of his way to prove that these documents were real, and some of the members of that community recognized they were real, none of them bothered to do a damn thing about it.
Update: Digby also has a take on the WaPo story which left her somewhat gobsmacked.
Update: Here’s a link to the 102nd Intelligence Wing.
Our mission is to provide worldwide precision intelligence and command and control along with trained and experienced Airmen for expeditionary combat support and homeland security.
April 13, 2023, 12:01 p.m. ET