(Update, 4:39 pm ET: On Thursday afternoon, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Jack Teixeira “without incident,” The The Washington Post reported. Costs are likely to follow. Anonymous sources identified Teixeira as the suspected source of the leaked military documents, and officials are expected to continue investigating how Teixeira gained access to the classified materials.
AP News has the memo More details of the arrest, said Teixeira was arrested at his Massachusetts home. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Teixeira will be charged with “unauthorized disclosure of classified national security information.” The National Guard released a statement to note that they were “aware of the investigation into the alleged role that a Massachusetts Air Guardsman may have played in the recent leak of high-profile documents.”)
The head of a private Discord server accused of leaking top-secret military documents has been identified by a “trail of evidence” as Jack Teixeira, “a 21-year-old member of the National Guard’s intelligence division -Massachusetts Air language,” The New York Times reported. US officials are now seeking to speak with Teixeira after days of searching for the leaker, including coordinating with Discord after the private server was deleted.
Something earlier The Washington Post reports revealed the leaker as OG, a young man who allegedly worked at a military base while posting photos of hundreds of classified documents for months on a private Discord server before being caught by US authorities.
Members of the Discord server where the leak appears to have been targeted by the U.S. embassy security guard — some of whom are young men who told The Post they won’t reveal their real identities because they think OG is “family” and race. “uncle.” These Discord community members told the Post that they have not been contacted by authorities.
While there is still some speculation about the authenticity of the documents, the documents appear to detail national security secrets tied to US foreign enemies and allies, including Russia, China, Ukraine, and South Korea.
Open source research site Bellingcat tried to find out the origins of the leaked documents after the documents spread to popular Discord servers called “Minecraft Earth Map” and “The End of Wow Mao Zone” and then to Telegram, 4Chan, and Twitter. Bellingcat found that the documents appeared to come from a private Discord server that hosts a 25-member collaborative community called “Thug Shaker Central,” but Bellingcat could not independently verify that because that server had deleted.
Discord did not immediately respond to an Ars request to comment on whether the server was deleted by administrators or by Discord moderators. Discord’s community guidelines prohibit engaging in illegal behavior or sharing false or misleading information that could cause social harm.
The Times linked Teixeira to other members of Thug Shaker Central through his online gaming profile and matching details from behind-the-scenes photos of his childhood home. Teixeira’s mother, Dawn, told the Times that she recently changed her phone number, and a man standing with Dawn on her street told the Times that Teixeira “needs to get a lawyer” because “the Feds are going to be around soon. “
In a enter information This week, Chris Meagher, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, confirmed that some of the images shared online “appear to have changed,” saying that “a Pentagon team continues to review and fact-check Circulating photographic documents. on social media sites and appears at times to contain sensitive and highly classified material.” Meager said the department stopped the “unauthorized disclosure of classified information” and had launched a collaborative effort with the White House to identify the leaker and assess “the potential impact the leaked documents could have on national security.” US language and on our friends and partners. “
The Department of Defense told Ars that they had no further comment at this time.