A young American soldier arrested in 2023 for a leak of classified documents, notably on the war in Ukraine, pleaded guilty on Monday before American justice, sealing an agreement for 16 years in prison against the abandonment of the most serious charges for espionage.
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Jack Teixeira, 22, appeared in federal court in Boston wearing an orange inmate’s outfit. He admitted to disseminating information relating to the national defense of the United States, but prosecutors will not charge him with espionage, which would have earned him a much harsher sentence, probably life in prison.
Under the legal agreement, the Air Force National Guard recruit will escape a criminal trial but will be sentenced by a judge to 16 years and eight months in prison, a $50,000 fine and will be required to help intelligence officials to understand how the leak was possible.
Jack Teixeira had so far pleaded not guilty, after being indicted in particular by a federal grand jury (jury of citizens who participate in the investigation phase, Editor’s note) with six counts of “voluntary preservation and transmission of information relating to national defense”, each punishable by a sentence of up to ten years in prison.
The federal police (FBI) arrested him on April 13 outside his family home in Dighton, south of Boston, a few days after the revelations of these leaks in the American press.
Hired as a computer and communications specialist in a military base on Cape Cod, near this historic New England city, he published confidential information on a discussion group on the Discord platform, which subsequently circulated on other social networks.
The secret documents had revealed US intelligence concerns about the viability of a Ukrainian counter-offensive against Russian forces. They also implied that Washington was collecting intelligence on its closest partners, notably Israel and South Korea.
The affair embarrassed Washington and raised questions about possible security breaches, even though the young soldier had a defense secret clearance, allowing him to access this sensitive information, despite his modest rank.
The Teixeira affair recalls, to a much lesser extent, the case of Edward Snowden, an employee of the American intelligence services who revealed in 2013 that the United States had a system of mass surveillance around the world.
