(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira is set to be sentenced on Nov. 12 for allegedly leaking classified Pentagon documents on a Discord gaming platform, revealing that the U.S. has boots on the ground in Ukraine, that the U.S. the Biden administration spied on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and that the war there was going worse for Ukraine that officials were saying publicly.
Ahead of Teixeira’s sentencing, his lawyers reportedly filed an 80-page sentencing memorandum, pleading leniency—arguing that Teixeira, who was 21 at the time of his alleged actions, was essentially a child. They also reportedly said he was bullied as a child, and that he is autistic and “severely stunted by his disabilities.”
“His conduct was clearly wrong and misguided, but his motives and decisions were naïve, not nefarious,” the attorneys, Brendan Kelley and Michael K. Bachrach, said, according to ABC News. The lawyers seek an 11-year sentence for their client.
However, Teixeira’s sentencing memo was supposed to be filed under seal, and was apparently made public by mistake. Presiding U.S. Judge Indira Talwani immediately ordered that the memorandum be made secret again.
Lawyers for alleged Pentagon Discord leaker Jack Teixeira apparently filed some sensitive documents in court yesterday, when they were supposed to remain under seal. The judge ordered any (3rd party) to destroy them.
Please tell me someone actually saved these documents! ABC and… pic.twitter.com/PvmhNVnudm
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 30, 2024
Judge Talwani also ordered any third party who obtained Teixeira’s sentencing memorandum to destroy it immediately. That would include journalists from ABC News and the Boston Globe, which both reported on the secret sentencing memorandum before it was ordered stricken from the docket. Those publications presumably have copies of the sentencing memorandum, but they haven’t published it.
The judge’s order for journalists and other non-parties to destroy the Teixeira memorandum is the latest government intimidation tactic in the Pentagon/Discord leak case.
SpyTalk reported last year that one of its readers, former U.S. Army “information warfare expert” Paul Cobaugh, was visited by the FBI last week over an article he posted on his LinkedIn account about the Pentagon leaks in April.
According to SpyTalk, the FBI visited Cobaugh’s house and asked him to take down an article about the leaks. Cobaugh said he complied.
“I gave him my phone and said, ‘Here, you find it—you know better how to look for it than me.’ So I gave him my phone. I don’t have anything to hide,” he told SpyTalk.
SpyTalk asked the FBI agent who visited Cobaugh’s home whether the bureau was reaching out to everyone who had re-posted photos of the Discord leaks and asking them to take them down.
“That’s correct,” the FBI agent, whose name was withheld, told SpyTalk. It was a project of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, he said.
Meanwhile, the DOJ has filed its own sentencing memorandum, as well as these exhibits.
An FBI agent revealed that Teixeira was apparently talking to someone in Serbia. Not surprising, but hard to believe feds weren't monitoring this chatAlso, here's a certification Teixeira… https://t.co/N9Vyp2CLUQ pic.twitter.com/P7pMl29iFH
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 30, 2024
Meanwhile, the DOJ seeks a stiffer, 16-year sentence, reportedly arguing that Teixeira “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
