When a judge ordered the Massachusetts Air National Guard soldier accused of leaking sensitive military data to remain in custody, he appealed, citing the pretrial release of former President Donald Trump and other defendants in high-profile classified materials cases on Monday.
A magistrate judge determined in May that Jack Teixeira, 21, must remain in custody while the case is resolved because his release would increase the likelihood that he will try to flee the country or obstruct justice. Teixeira’s attorneys are now requesting that a separate judge overturn that judgment.
Defense lawyers stated in court documents that Teixeira lacks the resources or motivation to run, and that the government has “greatly overstated Mr. Teixeira’s risk to national security.” Teixeira’s attorneys said that prosecutors failed to pursue the detention of either Trump or his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, despite the fact that the former president and his butler “possess extraordinary means to flee the United States.”
Former President Trump has access to a private plane, and The Trump Organization and former President Trump both own properties abroad. However, neither of them had their passports requested to be turned up, despite the flight risk created by their knowledge of national security material and their unusual capacity to depart, according to Teixeira’s attorneys.
The “disparate approach” in these instances, which are both charged under the Espionage Act, demonstrates, according to Teixeira’s counsel, that the government’s “argument for Mr. Teixeira’s detention on this basis is illusory.”
Six counts of willful retention and dissemination of national security secrets were brought against Teixeira last month, but he pleaded not guilty. Each count carries a maximum 10-year jail sentence.
Trump has also entered a not guilty plea to numerous felony counts accusing him of keeping sensitive papers at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago and defying requests from the government to hand them over. Trump was not asked to turn in his passport because, according to the prosecution, he did not pose a flight danger, but the magistrate court did order him to refrain from discussing the matter with some witnesses. The case has been criticized by Trump as being politically motivated while he has denied any wrongdoing.
Teixeira, of North Dighton, has been imprisoned since his April arrest on suspicion of participating in the worst intelligence leak in recent memory. His attorneys have recommended that he be allowed to see his father but otherwise kept in his house with GPS tracking and no internet access.
Teixeira is suspected of posting critical national security information on the social media site Discord, which is much-liked by those who play online games, as well as classified military documents about Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.
Teixeira, who joined the Air National Guard in 2019, is accused by authorities of starting to share military secrets with other Discord users around January. At first, he reportedly typed out sensitive information before distributing images of files with SECRET and TOP SECRET designations. Teixeira was a “cyber transport systems specialist,” or an IT professional in charge of the networks used for military communications.
Authorities haven’t given many specifics about a purported motivation, but some who participated in the online private chat group where the documents were made public have described Teixeira as being more brazen than ideological.
The judge decided to hold Teixeira after Justice Department attorneys disclosed a history of unsettling internet remarks in court files. In November, he declared that, given the chance, he would “kill a (expletive) ton of people” in the name of “culling the weak-minded.” He claimed to still have material that hasn’t been made public, which the prosecution claimed may be of “tremendous value to hostile nation states that could offer him safe harbor and attempt to facilitate his escape from the United States.”
There is no proof, according to Teixeira’s attorneys, that their client “ever carried his online conversations into reality or ever endangered any person in his community.” Furthermore, they claimed that there is no proof that Teixeira is so valuable that an enemy from abroad would be eager to sneak him out of the country.
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