Judge delays hearing for suspect in Pentagon leaks case
By Jeremy Herb and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
A detention hearing for the Air National Guardsman who is accused of posting a trove of classified documents to social media was postponed on Wednesday after a judge granted a request from lawyers involved in the case to have additional time.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers jointly requested that the hearing be delayed for two weeks, saying Jack Teixeira’s attorneys need more time to prepare. A new date was not immediately announced.
Teixeira briefly appeared in a Boston courtroom Wednesday to waive his right to a preliminary hearing. His attorneys declined to speak to reporters.
Teixeira, 21, is accused of posting classified intelligence — including sensitive information on the war in Ukraine — on the social media site Discord in a series of leaks that revealed the scope of US intelligence gathering on both its allies and adversaries. He is facing charges under the Espionage Act and has not yet entered a formal plea.
Prosecutors were expected to argue to a judge that Teixeira should stay behind bars during the course of his legal case. As part of their argument, prosecutors may disclose more details about Teixeira’s alleged actions to convince Hennessy that Teixeira is either too dangerous to be released or that he poses a flight risk.
Teixeira was arrested by the FBI last Thursday following a furious scramble by federal authorities to determine the identity of the leaker following reports that the classified documents had been sitting in a Discord chatroom.
Teixeira, an airman first class, was stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, where he worked on a classified computer network. He obtained a top secret security clearance in 2021.
According to charging documents, Teixeira began posting classified information to the Discord chatroom in December 2022, and he began uploading photos of the classified documents in January 2023.
The fact that the documents sat online for months before being discovered has revived questions about how classified information is handled across the government.
The Pentagon has limited access to classified materials in the wake of the leak, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has directed a 45-day review of classified intelligence handling across the Defense Department.
National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that at least some of the classified documents leaked by Teixeira had been doctored or contained false information, but acknowledged that intelligence officials are still scrambling to get their arms around the vastness of the leak.
“We’re taking this seriously. We still don’t know the full scope of what’s out there, what has been disclosed inappropriately, and we want to get our hands around this matter,” Kirby told CNN’s Jim Sciutto. He added that Ukrainian officials “don’t see any impact to their future defensive and offensive operations in the weeks and months ahead.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
The-CNN-Wire
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