Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira expected to plead guilty in leaking classified info
Feb. 29 (UPI) -- Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira is expected to plead guilty in federal court Monday to leaking classified information on social media.
Federal prosecutors told a judge Thursday that Teixeira intended to change his plea after previously pleading not guilty according to the New York Times.
CBS News reported Teixeira reached a deal with federal prosecutors, who filed a motion Thursday for a Rule 11 hearing on Monday, in which a judge will weigh whether the guilty plea is voluntary and adequate.
The charges to which he will plead were not disclosed. According to ABC News, the plea agreement was not yet been filed.
Teixeira, who was 21 at the time of his arrest, pleaded not guilty in 2023 to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.
Prosecutors said he abused his security clearance to access the materials from computers at an air base in Cape Cod and shared them with friends on the online message platform Discord in an effort to impress them.
The classified documents covered a range of subjects, notably troop movements in Russia and Ukraine, as well as a timeline for Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Prosecutors said Teixeira in some instances transcribed the information he was leaking, and in other cases he posted photos of the documents.
Teixeira enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019, according to his service record, and had top secret security clearance since 2021, according to the Justice Department.
The Justice Department said he had been posting classified documents online since 2022.
The Air Force disciplined 15 airmen in December after the service's inspector general found they knew of Teixeira's activities and failed to take action.
The investigation blamed Teixeira alone for the leaks but found members of his unit failed to adequately supervise his access to classified information and gave inconsistent guidelines for reporting security incidents.
