Held 'in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorised removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defence information' - the airman faces being charged under the Espionage Act and could be handed a lengthy jail sentence if convicted.
The 21-year-old was an airman 1st class at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, according to his service record.
He joined the Air National Guard in 2019 and worked as a"cyber transport systems journeyman", which is essentially an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks and ensuring their protection.Teixeira was arrested on Thursday by armed FBI agents at his home in the small town of Dighton, which lies around 50 miles south of Boston and has a population of 8,000.
Teixeira went by the handle"OG" in a chat group on the instant messaging site Discord, where the documents are believed to have originated. Called Thug Shaker Central it had around two dozen mostly young members who talked about their favourite types of guns and also shared memes and jokes, some of them racist.Some who chatted with him said he also posted about closely guarded US secrets, although Teixeira has been depicted as motivated more by bravado than ideology.
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