JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A Massachusetts Air National Guard member will be going to prison for 15 years for leaking classified information about the war in Ukraine. A federal judge sentenced Jack Teixeira today after a daylong hearing following the 22-year-old's guilty plea earlier this year. Walter Wuthmann of member station WBUR was in the courthouse for the sentencing and joins us now from Boston. Hi there.
WALTER WUTHMANN, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: So Walter, if you can, just start by reminding us of more of the details about what Teixeira did.
WUTHMANN: To Jack Teixeira was in the Massachusetts Air National Guard. And he was essentially an IT specialist but had high-level security clearance and could work on classified computer systems, so he had access to all sorts of secret and classified information. Investigators say he shared hundreds of pages of classified documents with a group of friends online over the course of a year. He used an online messaging system called Discord to communicate, and that's where he sent pictures of these documents. Many of them said right on the top, top secret or classified. He was arrested in 2023 and eventually pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act. And today he learned his sentence.
SUMMERS: I understand that Teixeira spoke today in court. What did he have to say?
WUTHMANN: Well, he was brought into the courtroom wearing his orange jumpsuit, and he apologized. He said, I'm sorry for all the harm that I've wrought. These documents had contained information about Ukrainian troop movements, weapon shipments and other defense-related information about Russia's war in Ukraine. Teixeira said he was ready to accept the judge's sentence. And his attorney asked that it be 11 years, which was half the life he'd already lived. The defense argued that Teixeira also has an autism diagnosis and that he was a lonely young man looking for a sense of community.
SUMMERS: Walter, one of the federal prosecutors also spoke in court today and in particular about the lasting impact of Teixeira leaking the classified information. What did you hear?
WUTHMANN: Prosecutors were asking for a little over 16 1/2 years in prison, and they basically got that. They said that the leaks had caused, quote, "historic and irreparable damage." They argued that the higher-end sentence would reflect the severity of the crime and also act to deter anyone else from doing something similar in the future. They said that despite Teixeira's diagnosis of autism, he still knew what he was doing, and he knew that it was wrong. For instance, investigators found that he tried to cover his tracks, in that he had smashed a laptop and a tablet, and they found the remains of those in a dumpster near his house.
SUMMERS: The prosecution made the argument that this lengthy sentence would send a message to others not to reveal classified information, but how does it compare to sentences for similar crimes?
WUTHMANN: So if he serves his complete sentence, it would be one of the longest ever under the Espionage Act. For context, in 2018, the Air Force and National Security Agency translator Reality Winner was sentenced to five years in prison for leaking a classified report about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Before her, Chelsea Manning was convicted in a court-martial in 2013 for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified and unclassified diplomatic and military documents to WikiLeaks. Manning was sentenced to 35 years but only served seven after President Obama commuted her sentence.
And of course, the most famous of all is Edward Snowden, the government contract employee for the National Security Agency. In 2013, he turned over highly classified information about U.S. government surveillance programs to several journalists. Snowden fled to Russia, and that's where he's been living in exile ever since.
SUMMERS: Walter Wuthmann is with member station WBUR in Boston. Thanks so much.
WUTHMANN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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