Lawyers for Jack Teixeira, the former Air National Guardsman accused of leaking top secret Pentagon documents, have asked a judge to reconsider an earlier decision to keep him behind bars as he awaits trial, citing the pretrial release of former President Donald Trump and others charged in similar high-profile cases involving classified documents.
Mr. Teixeira was arrested in April at a home in southern Massachusetts, about 18 miles east of Providence, Rhode Island, following a Department of Justice probe into a leak of highly classified materials on the messaging app Discord, as well as on the Telegram app and 4chan website.
Officials believe Mr. Teixeira, who joined the U.S. Air National Guard in September 2019 and had a high-security clearance, may have started sharing the documents online as far back as January of this year.
Mr. Teixeira has remained jailed since his arrest after a Massachusetts judge ruled in May that he must stay behind bars while his case plays out, finding at the time that his release posed a potential flight risk or that he could obstruct justice.
The 21-year-old has pleaded not guilty.
Teixeira ‘Lacks Financial’ Means to Flee
“Prior to his arrest, Mr. Teixeira believed that his apprehension was imminent,” his lawyers wrote. “If Mr. Teixeira was inclined to flee from law enforcement and his country, he would have done so at that time. Instead, without any judicial restraints or obligations, Mr. Teixeira chose to stay at his mother’s house, reading, expecting law enforcement to arrest him.”His attorneys also noted that Mr. Teixeira submitted to arrest without incident.
Additionally, they argued their client lacks the financial means necessary to escape the United States ahead of his trial, noting that he lives at home with his mother, and “made only $3,898 per month, before expenses.”
“Other than basic training, Mr. Teixeira has never lived anywhere other than with either of his parents in North Dighton,” they wrote. “Also, Mr. Teixeira is now an individual in the national consciousness. His pictures, videos, online conversations, and court appearances have all been the subject of widespread national reporting. There is nowhere for him to flee that he will not be subject to near immediate detection.”
His lawyers also went on to cite various criminal defendants who were not detained pending their trials, including Mr. Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta, both of whom have been charged with allegedly mishandling classified national security information and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Both individuals have denied wrongdoing, however they possess “extraordinary means” to flee the United States, his attorneys argued, citing Mr. Trump’s properties in multiple foreign countries and his access to a private plane.
No Clear Evidence of ‘Danger’
“Yet, the risk of flight posed by their knowledge of national security information, and their abnormal ability to flee, didn’t even result in a request that either surrender their passport,” they wrote. This “demonstrates that a person’s potential risk to national security does not alone justify pretrial detention in Espionage Act cases.”“The government’s disparate approach to pretrial release in these cases demonstrates that its argument for Mr. Teixeira’s pretrial detention based on knowledge he allegedly retains is illusory,” Mr. Teixeira’s lawyers wrote in the court filing.
“For the reasons previously articulated, the government is unable to meet its burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that any ‘danger’ Mr. Teixeira might pose to the community could not be sufficiently mitigated through the release conditions proposed herein,” they concluded.
Mr. Teixeira’s lawyers asked the court to allow their client to be released pretrial, subject to appropriate conditions.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Teixeira was a junior airman with the Air National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing, and worked as a cyber transport systems journeyman, meaning he was an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks, including their cabling and hubs.
Officials say his role granted him a higher level of security clearance and sensitive compartmented access to other highly classified programs since 2021.
Among the documents Mr. Teixeira allegedly leaked was highly-classified information regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China, and Israel, according to officials.
The leak raised concerns about why and how a junior-level airman could have access to such top secret documents and prompted the Pentagon to put in place additional measures to safeguard against national security leaks.
