The Troubling Trend of Intelligence Leaks in the Military

Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman, has been charged with unauthorized removal and retention of classified and national defense information. Teixeira had recently expressed disillusionment about having enlisted and was a member of a chat room on the social media platform Discord, where members of the group have said the leaks showed up. The group, called “Thug Shaker Central,” drew people who talked about their favorite types of guns and shared memes and jokes, some of them racist and anti-Semitic. Despite some claims on the right that Teixeira aimed to expose the Biden administration, members of the Discord group described him as someone looking to show off, rather than being motivated by a desire to inform the public about U.S. military operations or to influence American policy.