The chief of a small on-line gaming chat group the place a trove of categorised U.S. intelligence paperwork leaked over the previous few months is a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, in response to interviews and paperwork reviewed by The New York Times.
The nationwide guardsman, whose title is Jack Teixeira, oversaw a non-public on-line group named Thug Shaker Central, the place about 20 to 30 folks, principally younger males and youngsters, got here collectively over a shared love of weapons, racist on-line memes and video video games.
Two U.S. officers confirmed that investigators need to discuss to Airman Teixeira concerning the leak of the federal government paperwork to the non-public on-line group. One official mentioned Airman Teixeira may need data related to the investigation.
Federal investigators have been trying to find days for the one who leaked the highest secret paperwork on-line however haven’t recognized Airman Teixeira or anybody else as a suspect. The F.B.I. declined to remark.
Starting months in the past, one of many customers uploaded tons of of pages of intelligence briefings into the small chat group, lecturing its members, who had bonded throughout the isolation of the pandemic, on the significance of staying abreast of world occasions.
The New York Times spoke with 4 members of the Thug Shaker Central chat group, one among whom mentioned he has recognized the one who leaked for at the very least three years, had met him in particular person, and referred to him because the O.G. The pals described him as older than a lot of the group members, who had been of their teenagers, and the undisputed chief. One of the chums mentioned the O.G. had entry to intelligence paperwork by his job.
While the gaming pals wouldn’t establish the group’s chief by title, a path of digital proof compiled by The Times results in Airman Teixeira.
The Times has been capable of hyperlink Airman Teixeira to different members of the Thug Shaker Central group by his on-line gaming profile and different data. Details of the inside of Airman Teixeira’s childhood house — posted on social media in household images — additionally match particulars on the margins of a few of the images of the leaked secret paperwork.
The Times additionally has established, by social media posts and army data, that Airman Teixeira is enlisted within the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Posts on the unit’s official Facebook web page congratulated Airman Teixeira and colleagues for being promoted to Airman First Class in July 2022.
On Thursday, President Biden mentioned the United States was “getting close” to discovering solutions concerning the leak.
“There’s a full blown investigation going on, as you know, with the intelligence community and the Justice Department, and they’re getting close,” Mr. Biden informed reporters on a go to to Dublin.
It was not instantly clear if a younger Air National Guardsman in his place might have had entry to such extremely delicate briefings. Officials inside the U.S. authorities with safety clearance usually obtain such paperwork by every day emails, one official informed The Times, and people emails may then be routinely forwarded to different folks.
Airman Teixeira’s mom, Dawn, talking outdoors her house in Massachusetts on Thursday, confirmed that her son was a member of the Air National Guard and mentioned he had not too long ago been working in a single day shifts at a base on Cape Cod. In the previous few days, he had modified his cellphone quantity, she mentioned.
Later, somebody who seemed to be Airman Teixeira drove onto the property in a purple pickup truck.
When Times reporters approached the home once more, the truck was parked within the driveway. Airman Teixeira’s mom and a person had been standing outdoors within the driveway.
When requested if Airman Teixeira was there and prepared to talk, the person mentioned: “He needs to get an attorney if things are flowing the way they are going right now. The Feds will be around soon, I’m sure.”
Members of Thug Shaker Central who spoke to The Times mentioned that the paperwork they mentioned on-line had been meant to be purely informative. While many pertained to the battle in Ukraine, the members mentioned they took no aspect within the battle.
The paperwork, they mentioned, solely began to get wider consideration when one of many teenage members of the group took a couple of dozen of them and posted them to a public on-line discussion board. From there they had been picked up by Russian-language Telegram channels after which The New York Times, which first reported on them.
The one that leaked, they mentioned, was no whistleblower, and the key paperwork had been by no means meant to go away their small nook of the web.
“This guy was a Christian, anti-war, just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on,” mentioned one of many particular person’s pals from the neighborhood, a 17-year-old current highschool graduate. “We have some people in our group who are in Ukraine. We like fighting games, we like war games.”
Adam Goldman, C.J. Chivers, Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill contributed analysis.
Source: www.nytimes.com