According to US attorney general Merrick Garland, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard has been detained as a result of the release of extremely sensitive military records regarding the conflict in Ukraine.
The guardsman, named as 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, would face charges for unauthorized removal of secret national defense material, according to Mr. Garland.
Teixeira was wearing shorts and a T-shirt when FBI investigators descended on his Massachusetts house on Thursday. He was taken into custody outside the home “without incident” by heavily armed tactical officers, according to Mr. Garland.
Law enforcement officials roped off the street near the house.
The New York Times, which first identified Teixeira on Thursday, said that a man who had been standing outside Teixeira’s home earlier said that ‘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’.
The emergence of Teixeira as the apparent primary suspect is bound to raise questions about how the highest-profile intelligence leak in years could have been caused by such a young, low-ranking service member.
Teixeira, 21, is the leader of a small online chat group which is believed to have uploaded hundreds of photographs of classified documents, the New York Times reports.
The online group, which is hosted on the chat client Discord and calls itself Thug Shaker Central, has around 20-30 members who share their love of guns, racist memes and video games.
Two members of the group allegedly identified Teixeira of Swansea, Massachusetts, as the source of the leak, on condition of anonymity.
The Biden administration has scrambled for days to contain the fallout from the leaked information, which has publicised potential vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s air defence capabilities and exposed private assessments by allies on an array of intelligence matters.
The National Guard did not confirm his identity but said in a statement: ‘We are aware of the investigation into the alleged role a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman may have played in the recent leak of highly-classified documents.’
Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, referred all questions about the case to the Justice Department. But he said: ‘We have rules in place. Each of us signs a non-disclosure agreement. This is a criminal act, a wilful violation of those.’
It is believed the documents were shared in an apparent attempt to impress members of the group, rather than to achieve any particular foreign policy outcome.
Shortly after being posted to the group, the leaks soon spread to servers for YouTube influencers and Minecraft fans, before eventually reaching the far-right 4chan message board and pro-Russian telegram channels.
The Justice Department and FBI had previously narrowed down the pool of potential suspects believed responsible for the disclosure of the highly classified material, sources said.
The Biden administration has been working to assess the diplomatic and national security consequences of the leaked documents since they were first reported last week.
A top Pentagon spokesman told reporters earlier this week that the disclosures present a ‘very serious risk to national security,’ and the Justice Department opened an investigation to identify the person responsible.
‘We’re getting close,’ President Joe Biden told reporters in Ireland on Thursday. He said that though he was concerned that sensitive government documents had been disclosed, ‘there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence’.
Some of the leaked documents are dated as recently as March, and discussed Ukraine’s troop deployments, military vulnerabilities and efforts to arm its forces before a spring counteroffensive.
Private conversations between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his intelligence chief were also intercepted, along with evidence of the US spying on its allies.
It was not clear how many suspects remained or when or if an arrest might be made.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the situation on Thursday.
There are only a few ways the classified information that was leaked could have been accessed, which may provide critical clues as to who is responsible. Typically in classified briefings, as with the slides that were placed on Discord, the information is shared electronically.
That is done either through secure computer terminals where users gain access based on their credentials or through tablets that are distributed for briefings and collected afterward.
If the slides need to be printed out instead, they can only be sent to secured printers that are able to handle classified documents – and that keep a digital record of everyone who has requested a printout.
In most of the photographs of documents posted online the pictures are of paper copies that look like they had been folded into quarters.
In the days since the leaks came to light, the Pentagon has deferred questions on the investigation to the Justice Department, stating that it is a criminal matter.