Jack Teixeira , 21, who is suspected of causing one of the most serious scandals of leaking classified documents in ten years in the United States , will appear before the judiciary on Friday, the day after his arrest.

And US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that this junior employee of the Air National Guard was "arrested without incident" Thursday in the rural town of Dayton, south of Boston, in the state of Massachusetts (northeast).

American television channels broadcast his arrest directly.

The Pentagon said the young man was suspected of causing a "serious danger" to the national security of the United States by publishing classified documents online about the war in Ukraine that also reveal that Washington is collecting information on its allies, including Israel and South Korea.

This is one of the very embarrassing issues for President Joe Biden's government.

A source in the US Department of Justice said that the young man could appear in court in Massachusetts on Friday.

Television channels broadcast aerial footage of his arrest on Thursday. The footage shows a man with his hands on his head and wearing a gray shirt and red shorts slowly retreating towards the armed men in camouflage uniforms before being arrested and then taken to a car.

The White House announced that US President Joe Biden, who is visiting Ireland, was briefed on the arrest of the young man.
Biden had previously stated his concern about the leak.

The US Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation after the documents were leaked.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the leak was the work of a young man working on a military base who shared his information on a private online group on the social network Discord. Under the pseudonym "OG", the suspect published the most famous documents issued by the military base where he works.

The National Guard said Jacques Teixeira, who was hired in September 2019, is a computer and communications specialist with the rank of pilot first class, the third lowest in the hierarchy.

OG had asked other members of the Discord group not to publish and expand the documents, stressing that he did not want to be a whistleblower, as reported by the Washington Post. However, he criticized the state, denouncing the "abuse of power", as well as the police and intelligence services.

The group includes 24 people, some from Russia and Ukraine, and brought together since 2020 by their common passion for firearms, military equipment and religion.

White House spokeswoman Karen Jean-Pierre said the United States was studying the "national security implications" of the leak. She added that the Pentagon also decided to impose more restrictions on access to this type of sensitive information.

And the presidential spokeswoman added that the US government wants social networks to "avoid facilitating" the distribution of such confidential materials, stressing that it "bears a responsibility towards its users and towards the state."

A spokesperson for the Discord chat forum platform told AFP that the safety of its users is a priority, stressing that the platform is cooperating with the authorities.

US Defense Department spokesman Chris Meagher said Monday that the mere circulation of these documents on the Internet represents "a very serious national security risk and could fuel disinformation."

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday praised the "swift arrest" of the suspect. He said in a statement that he had ordered "a review of access to our intelligence (...) and oversight procedures within the ministry to better focus our efforts on preventing the recurrence of this type of incident."

The documents, which were published on the Internet, especially reveal the fears of the American intelligence community about the feasibility of a Ukrainian counterattack against Russian forces.

A document seen by AFP also includes US concerns about Ukraine's ability to continue to defend itself against Russian strikes.

The pioneers of the “Discord” platform, as well as the “Twitter” website and the “Telegram” application, transmitted dozens of pictures of these documents for weeks, if not months, before the media noticed them.

US authorities have not publicly confirmed the authenticity of the documents posted online, nor have they been independently verified yet.
Many of these documents are no longer available on the sites where they first appeared.