Latest news with #JackTeixeira
The Independent
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Pentagon leaker begs Trump for pardon in jailhouse interview, calls himself a ‘patriot'
Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for leaking national defense secrets, is now pleading with President Donald Trump to issue him a pardon because he feels his case was 'politicized' by the Biden administration. In his first interview since he was arrested more than two years ago, Teixeira also described himself as a 'patriot' and said that he would do the same thing if he had the chance to do it all over again. 'I still believe in my actions,' he told ABC News. Speaking to ABC News host Linsey Davis by phone from federal prison this week, Teixeira – who pleaded guilty last year to six federal counts of willfully retaining and transmitting national defense information – defended sharing troop movements in Ukraine and other classified information on the gaming platform Discord. 'My intent was to educate the United States populist people about what was going on. It was not to harm the United States or the country because I love my nation. I'm a patriot,' he said. 'It was by no means meant to harm my country, but I did believe that I needed to educate the people about what was going on because I believe they were being lied to.' Following his arrest, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said Teixiera 'endangered our country's national security and that of our allies' all in an effort 'to impress anonymous friends on the internet.' After the 23-year-old was sentenced, now-former FBI Director Christopher Wray said it was a 'stark warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information: betray that trust, and you will be held accountable.' Besides pleading guilty to the federal counts, which resulted in prosecutors agreeing not to charge him under the Espionage Act, Teixeira also pleaded guilty to a military charge of obstructing justice. He was dishonorably discharged but avoided any additional jail time. While he appeared remorseful at his sentencing hearing, Teixeira now insists that his apology was mostly to his family and friends and that he believes that his actions caused no harm. Instead, he feels he was made an example of by former President Joe Biden. 'I just feel like there are people who have done far worse things as far as what they did with similar information, and they didn't get as bad of a treatment as I did. But my case was specifically politicized by the Biden administration,' he said, adding: 'I think that I was used as a sacrificial lamb, and I was crucified to be made of as an example.' While prosecutors noted that Teixeira was told to stop conducting 'deep dives' into classified information, which resulted in him 'purposefully and repeatedly' taking classified documents without permission, he maintains he was merely doing his 'due diligence' and following directives laid out by his superiors. Meanwhile, he said that it was the 'lies' being told by the Biden administration about the Ukraine war that prompted him to leak those secrets online. 'A lot of the things that the administration at the time was saying was wrong,' he said. 'It was misleading, it was outright false, or it was skewed, and essentially just, I wanted people to know exactly what was going on so that no one could say, 'Well, it was like this because the history book or the history textbook said it was.'' Adding that he 'would have done it again' despite his 15-year sentence, Teixeira revealed that his lawyer is directly appealing to the president for a pardon. 'I think they'll look at someone like me as a supporter and someone who really used what I thought was going to be my last vote in county jail for Trump during 2024,' Teixiera declared. 'And I just, I believe that indeed he will.' With the dishonorably discharged guardsman begging Trump to 'please give me back to my family, to reunite with my family with my rights as an American and with my freedom,' his attorney filed an application for a full pardon on Wednesday.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira speaks out from prison for 1st time: Exclusive
In an exclusive interview from federal prison, where he is currently serving a 15-year sentence for what prosecutors called one of the most significant leaks of U.S. national defense secrets, Jack Teixeira spoke out for the first time since his arrest more than two years ago -- telling ABC News he doesn't feel he betrayed his country and would commit the same acts again if he had the chance to do things over. The 23-year-old said he is also appealing to President Donald Trump for a pardon in what he called a "politicized" case under the Biden administration. "My intent was to educate the United States populist people about what was going on. It was not to harm the United States or the country because I love my nation. I'm a patriot," Teixeira told ABC News over the phone from a medium security federal correctional institution in Virginia. "It was by no means meant to harm my country, but I did believe that I needed to educate the people about what was going on because I believe they were being lied to." Watch "Good Morning America" at 7 a.m. ET for more from the interview with Jack Teixeira and his mother, Dawn Dufault. He said he believes that mission was accomplished "to a significant degree." "I don't feel that I betrayed my country at all, just the opposite," he said. "I believe that I educated a lot of the people who have been kept in the dark and who were being lied to about this concerning all of the things that had been going on." Prosecutors say that while serving as a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, Teixeira abused his top-secret clearance and accessed and posted images of hundreds of classified documents, including ones related to troop movements in Ukraine and details of the Chinese spy balloons, on the gaming platform Discord. Another document shared included "discussing a plot by a foreign adversary to target United States forces abroad," according to the indictment. The FBI said his actions created "exceptionally grave and long-lasting damage to the national security of the United States," while then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said Teixeira "endangered our country's national security and that of our allies" when he repeatedly shared classified national defense information online "in an attempt to impress anonymous friends on the internet." Teixeira pleaded guilty last year to six federal counts of willfully retaining and transmitting national defense information. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to charge him with additional counts under the Espionage Act. MORE: Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira sentenced to 15 years on federal charges He also pleaded guilty to a military charge of obstructing justice during a military court-martial this year, avoiding any additional confinement and receiving a dishonorable discharge as part of his plea agreement. Following the sentencing in the federal case, Joshua Levy, then-acting U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said Teixeira "abused his position of trust" and put himself above his country when he exploited his top-secret clearance and "made the deliberate choice" for over a year to access hundreds of classified documents and share them on Discord. This "significant sentence sends a powerful message to every individual who holds a top-secret clearance," Levy said. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement that the sentence is a "stark warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information: betray that trust, and you will be held accountable." As he serves his federal sentence, Teixeira maintains no one was harmed by his actions. He said his apology in a statement during his sentencing in federal court was meant for his family and friends and how this has impacted them. "I still believe in my actions," he said. Teixeira said he believes his case was politicized and that he doesn't deserve 15 years behind bars. "I just feel like there are people who have done far worse things as far as what they did with similar information, and they didn't get as bad of a treatment as I did," he said. "But my case was specifically politicized by the Biden administration." "I think that I was used as a sacrificial lamb, and I was crucified to be made of as an example," he continued. While serving as an information technology specialist, Teixeira used a secure workstation at his Massachusetts base to conduct hundreds of searches for classified documents related to national defense information that were unrelated to his duties, prosecutors said. Asked why he disregarded his training and leaked classified information, Teixeira said, "I believe that a lot of people and a lot of different people would determine what secrets should be kept, and I'm not entirely sure how fair that was. Because at least from what I had witnessed and what I have exposed, a lot of these things should have been shown to the American people and not kept secret from them. So I had a little bit of a disagreement with some of those policies, I guess you could say." Despite warnings from his superiors to stop conducting "deep dives" into classified intelligence information, he "purposefully and repeatedly removed classified information and documents containing NDI without authorization," prosecutors said. Pressed on why he continued to access information outside the scope of his duties despite being told to stop, Teixeira claimed he was encouraged to do the "exact opposite to those directives" and to "do our due diligence and look at what we're supporting and why we're support it and what's going on." "I felt like at the time when I was being admonished for following a directive that I was given by a superior, so it was just a clash of things that I believed was contradictory," he said. MORE: Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira pleads guilty to obstructing justice at court-martial Teixeira didn't go into specifics, but said he believed there were "lies" being propagated about what was going on concerning the "tactical and strategic aspect" of the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S. assistance to Ukraine. "A lot of the things that the administration at the time was saying was wrong, it was misleading, it was outright false, or it was skewed, and essentially just, I wanted people to know exactly what was going on so that no one could say, 'Well, it was like this because the history book or the history textbook said it was,''' he said. "I just wanted to show an unvarnished take on everything that was going on." Despite the 15-year sentence, he said he wouldn't change what he did. "I've tortured myself over and over and over again about what would happen if I didn't do this, or what would happen if this and that. And in reality, it doesn't really matter," he said. "I still do believe that, yes, I would have done it again." Teixeira said his lawyers are working on trying to get a pardon petition through to Trump, and that he believes he will be pardoned. "I think they'll look at someone like me as a supporter and someone who really used what I thought was going to be my last vote in county jail for Trump during 2024. And I just, I believe that indeed he will," he said. An attorney for Teixeira filed an application for a pardon on Wednesday. Such a request is typically submitted after a federal sentence has been completed, though his application notes that he is seeking a full pardon rather than only a commutation of his sentence. Ultimately, it will be up to the Trump administration to approve or deny his petition. Teixeira appealed to Trump to "please give me back to my family, to reunite with my family with my rights as an American and with my freedom." Teixeira's mother, Dawn Dufault, also appealed to Trump in her first interview since her son's arrest in April 2023, saying she thought his prosecution was "malicious" and the case "sensationalized." "He didn't do it to harm the country," Dufault told ABC News in an exclusive interview in Boston. "They told the public that they were going to make an example out of Jack." She said she wants Trump to look into the case and "look at how my son was treated." "If he agrees that it was unfair treatment, give him a pardon," she said. Dufault reflected on her son's arrest, saying, "It was a complete surprise to me." "That morning, the New York Times reporters came down my driveway asking to see him. That was the first inkling I had that anything was awry," she said. "We had been watching on the news, the stories, they were trying to find this person leaking documents. No idea. And that was April 13, that this all kind of kicked off. At that time, they had asked, they said that they were going to run an article naming him as the leaker. I still didn't believe it. It was unbelievable to me." Dufault said she still has questions about why her son did what he did, but she doesn't believe him to be a threat. She said she believed her son was "compelled to tell the truth" and made the choice to share the classified documents with friends on Discord. She added that Teixeira was also recently diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she said she thinks may also have been a factor in his actions. "I think that that also played into his compulsion to go against his oath that he took to the government," she said. "I feel like part of it was possibly uncontrollable because of what we now know is autism." Dufault said Teixeira comes from a military family, and they are concerned about national security in the wake of the leak. "How has it improved? Could this happen again? Is anybody looking at that? Does anybody care? It was focused heavily on Jack's character versus what actually happened, how it happened, and what could be done to improve the security of our national secrets," she said. "We love this country. We love the government. We're not conspiracy theorists. But I feel like more needs to be done to look into what happened." An Air Force Inspector General investigation found that individuals in Teixeira's unit "failed to take proper action after becoming aware of his intelligence-seeking activities" but that there was no evidence that members of his supervisory chain were aware of the unauthorized disclosures. Fifteen individuals received disciplinary and other administrative actions for "dereliction in the performance of duties," and the Department of the Air Force said it implemented several reforms to improve the protection of classified and sensitive information. Dufault described her son as a "good kid" who has changed since his arrest, becoming more self-aware and appreciative of his family. "I think he needs a second chance," she said. "I think he's still destined for something great. I always have, and I still feel that way." Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira speaks out from prison for 1st time: Exclusive originally appeared on
22-05-2025
- Politics
Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira speaks out from prison for 1st time: Exclusive
In an exclusive interview from federal prison, where he is currently serving a 15-year sentence for what prosecutors called one of the most significant leaks of U.S. national defense secrets, Jack Teixeira spoke out for the first time since his arrest more than two years ago -- telling ABC News he doesn't feel he betrayed his country and would commit the same acts again if he had the chance to do things over. The 23-year-old said he is also appealing to President Donald Trump for a pardon in what he called a "politicized" case under the Biden administration. "My intent was to educate the United States populist people about what was going on. It was not to harm the United States or the country because I love my nation. I'm a patriot," Teixeira told ABC News over the phone from a medium security federal correctional institution in Virginia. "It was by no means meant to harm my country, but I did believe that I needed to educate the people about what was going on because I believe they were being lied to." Watch "Good Morning America" at 7 a.m. ET for more from the interview with Jack Teixeira and his mother, Dawn Dufault. He said he believes that mission was accomplished "to a significant degree." "I don't feel that I betrayed my country at all, just the opposite," he said. "I believe that I educated a lot of the people who have been kept in the dark and who were being lied to about this concerning all of the things that had been going on." Prosecutors say that while serving as a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, Teixeira abused his top-secret clearance and accessed and posted images of hundreds of classified documents, including ones related to troop movements in Ukraine and details of the Chinese spy balloons, on the gaming platform Discord. Another document shared included "discussing a plot by a foreign adversary to target United States forces abroad," according to the indictment. The FBI said his actions created "exceptionally grave and long-lasting damage to the national security of the United States," while then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said Teixeira "endangered our country's national security and that of our allies" when he repeatedly shared classified national defense information online "in an attempt to impress anonymous friends on the internet." Teixeira pleaded guilty last year to six federal counts of willfully retaining and transmitting national defense information. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to charge him with additional counts under the Espionage Act. He also pleaded guilty to a military charge of obstructing justice during a military court-martial this year, avoiding any additional confinement and receiving a dishonorable discharge as part of his plea agreement. Following the sentencing in the federal case, Joshua Levy, then-acting U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said Teixeira "abused his position of trust" and put himself above his country when he exploited his top-secret clearance and "made the deliberate choice" for over a year to access hundreds of classified documents and share them on Discord. This "significant sentence sends a powerful message to every individual who holds a top-secret clearance," Levy said. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement that the sentence is a "stark warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information: betray that trust, and you will be held accountable." 'I still believe in my actions' As he serves his federal sentence, Teixeira maintains no one was harmed by his actions. He said his apology in a statement during his sentencing in federal court was meant for his family and friends and how this has impacted them. "I still believe in my actions," he said. Teixeira said he believes his case was politicized and that he doesn't deserve 15 years behind bars. "I just feel like there are people who have done far worse things as far as what they did with similar information, and they didn't get as bad of a treatment as I did," he said. "But my case was specifically politicized by the Biden administration." "I think that I was used as a sacrificial lamb, and I was crucified to be made of as an example," he continued. While serving as an information technology specialist, Teixeira used a secure workstation at his Massachusetts base to conduct hundreds of searches for classified documents related to national defense information that were unrelated to his duties, prosecutors said. Asked why he disregarded his training and leaked classified information, Teixeira said, "I believe that a lot of people and a lot of different people would determine what secrets should be kept, and I'm not entirely sure how fair that was. Because at least from what I had witnessed and what I have exposed, a lot of these things should have been shown to the American people and not kept secret from them. So I had a little bit of a disagreement with some of those policies, I guess you could say." Despite warnings from his superiors to stop conducting "deep dives" into classified intelligence information, he "purposefully and repeatedly removed classified information and documents containing NDI without authorization," prosecutors said. Pressed on why he continued to access information outside the scope of his duties despite being told to stop, Teixeira claimed he was encouraged to do the "exact opposite to those directives" and to "do our due diligence and look at what we're supporting and why we're support it and what's going on." "I felt like at the time when I was being admonished for following a directive that I was given by a superior, so it was just a clash of things that I believed was contradictory," he said. Teixeira didn't go into specifics, but said he believed there were "lies" being propagated about what was going on concerning the "tactical and strategic aspect" of the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S. assistance to Ukraine. "A lot of the things that the administration at the time was saying was wrong, it was misleading, it was outright false, or it was skewed, and essentially just, I wanted people to know exactly what was going on so that no one could say, 'Well, it was like this because the history book or the history textbook said it was,''' he said. "I just wanted to show an unvarnished take on everything that was going on." Despite the 15-year sentence, he said he wouldn't change what he did. "I've tortured myself over and over and over again about what would happen if I didn't do this, or what would happen if this and that. And in reality, it doesn't really matter," he said. "I still do believe that, yes, I would have done it again." Teixeira said his lawyers are working on trying to get a pardon petition through to Trump, and that he believes he will be pardoned. "I think they'll look at someone like me as a supporter and someone who really used what I thought was going to be my last vote in county jail for Trump during 2024. And I just, I believe that indeed he will," he said. An attorney for Teixeira filed an application for a pardon on Wednesday. Such a request is typically submitted after a federal sentence has been completed, though his application notes that he is seeking a full pardon rather than only a commutation of his sentence. Ultimately, it will be up to the Trump administration to approve or deny his petition. Teixeira appealed to Trump to "please give me back to my family, to reunite with my family with my rights as an American and with my freedom." Teixeira's mother speaks out for 1st time, too Teixeira's mother, Dawn Dufault, also appealed to Trump in her first interview since her son's arrest in April 2023, saying she thought his prosecution was "malicious" and the case "sensationalized." "He didn't do it to harm the country," Dufault told ABC News in an exclusive interview in Boston. "They told the public that they were going to make an example out of Jack." She said she wants Trump to look into the case and "look at how my son was treated." "If he agrees that it was unfair treatment, give him a pardon," she said. Dufault reflected on her son's arrest, saying, "It was a complete surprise to me." "That morning, the New York Times reporters came down my driveway asking to see him. That was the first inkling I had that anything was awry," she said. "We had been watching on the news, the stories, they were trying to find this person leaking documents. No idea. And that was April 13, that this all kind of kicked off. At that time, they had asked, they said that they were going to run an article naming him as the leaker. I still didn't believe it. It was unbelievable to me." Dufault said she still has questions about why her son did what he did, but she doesn't believe him to be a threat. She said she believed her son was "compelled to tell the truth" and made the choice to share the classified documents with friends on Discord. She added that Teixeira was also recently diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she said she thinks may also have been a factor in his actions. "I think that that also played into his compulsion to go against his oath that he took to the government," she said. "I feel like part of it was possibly uncontrollable because of what we now know is autism." Dufault said Teixeira comes from a military family, and they are concerned about national security in the wake of the leak. "How has it improved? Could this happen again? Is anybody looking at that? Does anybody care? It was focused heavily on Jack's character versus what actually happened, how it happened, and what could be done to improve the security of our national secrets," she said. "We love this country. We love the government. We're not conspiracy theorists. But I feel like more needs to be done to look into what happened." An Air Force Inspector General investigation found that individuals in Teixeira's unit "failed to take proper action after becoming aware of his intelligence-seeking activities" but that there was no evidence that members of his supervisory chain were aware of the unauthorized disclosures. Fifteen individuals received disciplinary and other administrative actions for "dereliction in the performance of duties," and the Department of the Air Force said it implemented several reforms to improve the protection of classified and sensitive information. Dufault described her son as a "good kid" who has changed since his arrest, becoming more self-aware and appreciative of his family. "I think he needs a second chance," she said. "I think he's still destined for something great. I always have, and I still feel that way."
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira pleads guilty in court martial deal
Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira went through with a plea deal at a Thursday court martial, according to The Associated Press. Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, pleaded guilty to military obstructing justice charges, according to the AP, with a lack of jail time and dishonorable discharge being involved in his plea agreement. A judge accepted the deal. Teixeira, who leaked classified information about U.S. war strategy in Ukraine on the social platform Discord, said Thursday that he had been 'exposing and correcting the lies that were perpetrated by President Biden and force-fed to the American people' on the Russia-Ukraine war. 'I believe the Department of Justice was politicized against President Trump and myself,' Teixeira said, according to the AP. Late last year, a U.S. District Court judge sentenced Teixeira to 15 years in prison. Teixeira had also pleaded guilty last March to six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information following his posting of more than 100 classified documents covering topics including Ukraine and intelligence gathered via spying on allies. Prosecutors for the military had pushed for the suitability of obstructing justice and disobeying orders charges, saying the military's 'absolute core' is obeying orders. Teixeira's lawyer, Lt. Col. Bradley Poronsky, pushed for the charge of obstructing justice to be dismissed or result in no punishment on Monday, AP reported. Both sides eventually came to a plea agreement in which the disobeying orders charge was dropped, per the AP. The Hill has reached out to the Air Force for comment. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CNN
13-03-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira pleads guilty to obstructing justice, calls himself a ‘proud patriot'
Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member who caused an international uproar when he leaked highly classified documents about the war in Ukraine, pleaded guilty to military charges of obstructing justice at his court-martial Thursday and called himself a 'proud patriot.' In a 10-minute address, Teixeira said he was 'exposing and correcting the lies that were perpetrated by President Biden and force-fed to the American people' about the war in Ukraine. 'I believe the Department of Justice was politicized against President Trump and myself,' added Teixeira, who said he acted alone. He called on Trump and members of his administration to reverse his convictions. 'If I saved one American, Russian or Ukrainian life in this money-grabbing war, my punishment was worth it,' he said. The plea agreement calls for dishonorable discharge and no jail time. The judge approved the plea agreement, but had not addressed his sentencing yet, which was expected to occur later Thursday afternoon. Teixeira was already sentenced last year to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in federal court to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act, following his arrest in the most consequential national security breach in years. Military prosecutors said before the court-martial at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts that charges of disobeying orders and obstructing justice were appropriate given that obeying orders is the 'absolute core' of the military. Teixeira's lawyer, Lt. Col. Bradley Poronsky, argued Monday that the obstructing justice charge should either be dismissed or go unpunished, saying it amounts to double jeopardy because it already factored into Teixeira's November sentencing. A plea agreement was accepted by both sides that drops the disobeying orders charge. Teixeira pleaded guilty to the obstruction charge, admitting that he used a hammer to destroy a cellphone, a computer hard drive and an iPad after seeing some news reports of the leaked documents. He also admitted to telling his friend to destroy messages exchanged on a communication app. 'I was scared about a potential law enforcement investigation into me and my friends,' he said in court Thursday. As the sentencing phase began, Teixeira's parents said he took an early interest in the military as a child. His father, also named Jack Teixeira, described him as 'a good kid, energetic, intelligent, and quirky.' When his son decided to join the military, 'I was excited about it,' the elder Teixeira said. 'It was a good option for Jack.' He said it gave him direction and the chance to see the world. 'He made a mistake,' his mother, Dawn Dufault, said. 'Everyone makes mistakes. He's my son, I love him. He deserves a second chance.' The leaks exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia's war in Ukraine, including information about troop movements in Ukraine, and the provision of supplies and equipment to Ukrainian troops. The leaked documents also revealed assessments of the defense capabilities of Taiwan and internal arguments in Britain, Egypt, Israel, South Korea and Japan. Teixeira also admitted to posting information about a US adversary's plans to harm US forces serving overseas. Teixeira worked as an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks. His lawyers described Teixeira as an autistic, isolated individual who spent most of his time online, especially with his Discord community, and never meant to harm the United States.
