On Wednesday, Jack Teixeira, the US airman accused of disclosing top-secret Pentagon information in an internet discussion forum, pleaded not guilty to charges that may land him in prison for decades.
The 21-year-old Air National Guard IT specialist from Massachusetts was arrested in April for allegedly arranging the most devastating leak of US classified documents in a decade.
He is charged with maintaining and distributing national security information on six counts. They each face prison sentences of up to ten years.
According to court filings, Teixeira appeared before Magistrate Judge David Hennessy in Worcester, Massachusetts, on Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to all of the accusations.
Teixeira’s counsel requested that he be released awaiting trial, but the judge dismissed the motion.
Teixeira is accused of posting the documents, some of which date as recently as early March, to a private Discord chat group.
Some of the files were later discovered on other websites, such as Twitter, 4Chan, and Telegram.
The records, which quickly disseminated on the Internet, revealed US concerns about Ukraine’s military capability against invading Russian forces, as well as evidence that Washington had spied on allies Israel and South Korea, among other sensitive facts.
It was the largest such breach since Edward Snowden’s 2013 leak of National Security Agency papers, and it raised serious concerns about Teixeira’s access to top-secret information.
Teixeira has a top secret security clearance since 2021 and was an airman first class, the third-lowest rank for enlisted US Air Force troops.
A court ordered Teixeira’s detention until trial last month after prosecutors argued he represented an ongoing threat to American national security.
Prosecutors said Teixeira could still have access to confidential documents and that “hostile” nations could help him escape if he was released.
They also referenced his previous “violent” utterances.
In November, Teixeira posted on social media that he wanted to “kill a ton of people” because it would be “culling the weak minded,” according to the prosecution in a court document.
Prosecutors also said that the airman sought assistance from another user on what type of rifle would be easiest to handle from the back of an SUV, and that he conducted an online search for mass shootings.
Teixeira was arrested on April 13 in a dramatic arrest that was shown live on television networks.
