This photo illustration created on April 13, 2023, shows the suspect, national guardsman Jack Teixeira, reflected in an image of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. | Source: STEFANI REYNOLDS / Getty
Among the continued revelations about a young National Guardsman accused of leaking classified U.S. government documents on the internet is his alleged predilection for racism.
Not necessarily described as a white supremacist, Jack Teixeira had multiple mainstream media reports dedicated to covering the 21-year-old’s lifestyle and habits online, where he befriended a group of like-minded people who appear to have had a shared distrust of the U.S. government in common.
While officials are still working to find out why Teixeira shared top-secret Pentagon documents in a glorified chat room that was part of an online platform once embraced by right-wing conspiracy theorists, telling descriptions provided a glimpse into the Massachusetts native who was arrested in his home on Thursday.
According to the Washington Post, in one instance during a time when Teixeira was allegedly regularly sharing classified documents among a group on the Discord platform, a video showed him casually expressing racist sentiments as he apparently practices shooting.
The Post’s piece was published in the hours before Teixeira’s arrest and was fueled by a narrative provided by a young member of the Discord group who referred to the Massachusetts National Guardsman as “OG.”
From the Post:
In a video seen by The Post, the man who the member said is OG stands at a shooting range, wearing safety glasses and ear coverings and holding a large rifle. He yells a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then fires several rounds at a target.
The chat room was also reportedly a place where racism was no stranger.
Also from the Post:
OG’s group itself had a dark side. The Discord server’s eventual name, Thug Shaker Central, was a racist allusion, and signaled to members that they were free to hurl epithets and crude jokes. The young member expressed some regret for their behavior but seemed to shrug off the offensive remarks as a clumsy attempt at humor.
The Guardian’s report built on the theme of racism and reported that the group also peddled “racist memes” and described Teixeira as someone “with racist and anti-establishment views.”
However, one key portion of the Post’s profile suggests that Teixeira’s purported suspicion of ulterior motives from the U.S. government outweighed any hatred he may have harbored toward a racial or ethnic minority.
More from the Post:
But OG had a dark view of the government. The young member said he spoke of the United States, and particularly law enforcement and the intelligence community, as a sinister force that sought to suppress its citizens and keep them in the dark. He ranted about “government overreach.”
OG told his online companions that the government hid horrible truths from the public. He claimed, according to the members, that the government knew in advance that a white supremacist intended to go on a shooting rampage at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022. The attack left 10 dead, all of them Black, and wounded three more. OG said federal law enforcement officials let the killings proceed so they could argue for increased funding, a baseless notion that the member said he believes and considers an example of OG’s penetrating insights about the depth of government corruption.
It certainly doesn’t help Teixeira’s case in the court of public opinion that notorious racist Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene defended him on Twitter specifically because she said he is “white, male, Christian, and antiwar.”
Notably, Discord is also the online platform where the so-called Unite the Right deadly march in Charlottesville, Virginia, was planned in 2017.
The precise nature of Teixeira’s arrest had not been made public as of the time this article was published.
U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland said after Teixeira’s arrest that the young man was taken into custody stemming from “an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information.”
The leaked documents reportedly included confidential information about Russia’s war in Ukraine along with evidence that the U.S. has been spying on its allies like South Korea and Israel.
Teixeira is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Friday in Boston.
SEE ALSO:
‘Scandal-Free’ Obama Gave All Classified Documents To National Archives, Rep Says
‘Suspicious’ Rep. Hank Johnson Suggests Classified Documents Linked To Biden May Have Been ‘Planted’
