(TheRedWire.com) – Federal prosecutors filed a motion on Wednesday to detain accused Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira for having shared classified documents through a Discord chat with members of the international community.
In their motion to detain, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that the 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member had shared documents with more than 150 members of the international community through different servers. They added that the number of people whom these documents were shared with, means that “the notion of a limited transmission to a small private community” which is the narrative the defendant is trying to create is completely undermined.
They further point out that it shows that the defendant’s narrative that he had not realized the harm that his activity could cause also did not stand. He added that the defendant at this point could not be trusted to not create any further damage.
Last month, Judge David Hennessy at the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts had paused the immediate ruling on whether or not Teixeira should be detained until his trial on charges of willfully retaining and sharing classified national secrets violating the Espionage Act.
On Friday, the pretrial detention is set to take place, where Hennessy will be hearing more arguments from both sides. Teixeira’s lawyers have claimed that his release would be on the grounds that he had never meant for the documents to be linked for the whole world to see. They further claimed that Teixeira would not pose a threat to either the government or the public if released.
The DOJ countered that argument by presenting evidence about Teixeira allegedly stating his desire to kill people with an “assassination van” and using racist slurs.
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