The FBI arrested a 21-year-old suspect in the Pentagon Discord leak, using Steam and a kitchen counter to do it. The New York Times said National Guard IT specialist Jack Teixeira was arrested on April 13, 2023, for allegedly leaking sensitive military documents, including some pertaining to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The documents were contained on Discord until March 2023, when the FBI was made aware of the leaks after some appeared on a Minecraft server. It was a team of New York Times investigators who identified Teixeira as the alleged culprit.
“A breakthrough in our investigation came when the team identified a Steam profile in Airman Teixeira’s name that led to an Instagram profile with photos of the exact location where leaked docs were photographed — a kitchen countertop in his childhood home,” New York Times visual investigator Christiaan Triebert said on Twitter.
A breakthrough in our investigation came when the team identified a Steam profile in Airman Teixeira's name that led to an Instagram profile with photos of the exact location where leaked docs were photographed — a kitchen countertop in his childhood home. https://t.co/XQAZf2kNV7 pic.twitter.com/DWlkN8xmqK
— Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) April 13, 2023
The New York Times says Teixeira ran a Discord server called Thug Shaker Central, where he reportedly discussed “guns, racist memes, and video games” with its 20-30 members. An unnamed member of that server told The Washington Post that Teixeira began sharing classified information in 2022 in an attempt to educate Thug Shaker members about the U.S. government’s actions. Teixeira may have shared hundreds of documents in the server, all while playing games.
“He’s a smart person,” the member said. “He knew what he was doing when he posted these documents, of course. These weren’t accidental leaks of any kind.”
Another member told The New York Times that Teixeira wasn’t a whistleblower motivated by a sense of moral outrage, but that he wanted to show them “what war really is.” Teixeira is currently detained, pending a hearing on April 19, 2023, where he faces two counts of violating the espionage act.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF.