What We Know About Jack Teixeira

That’s the first part of the title of an Epoch Times story as republished at Zerohedge:

What We Know About Jack Teixeira, Accused Of Involvement In Classified Documents Leak

There’s little enough that’s available, but I’ve extracted two bits. There’s also a link to the charging document—which is also pretty threadbare. FWIW, here’s what seems to me to be most relevant.

This first excerpt describes the duties of a “cyber transport systems specialist”. What emerges is that a person like Teixeira holding that position had absolutely zero reason to be conducting searches that would have located the documents that were leaked—read it for yourself:

After enlisting in September 2019, Teixeira became a cyber transport systems specialist, a National Guard spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

According to his specialty code, Teixeira was listed at the lowest skill level.

Describing cyber transport systems personnel, the Air Force website states: “A vast, global communications network is one of the many things that makes us the most powerful air force on the planet. Making sure the underlying infrastructure of this network is operating properly is the responsibility of Cyber Transport Systems specialists. Whether it’s repairing a network hub at a stateside base or installing fiber-optic cable at a forward installation overseas, these experts keep our communications systems up and running and play an integral role in our continuing success.”

The minimum education for a cyber transport systems role is a high school diploma or a general education diploma. Specialist requirements include knowledge of electronic and network principles; experience in the installation of voice, data, and video network infrastructure; and completion of basic military training.

However, the charging document provides a slightly different job title:

23. According to a review of government records and information, since May 2022, TEIXEIRA has been serving as an E-3/Airman First Class in the USANG and has been stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts. TEIXEIRA enlisted in the USANG in September 2019 as an E-1 rank. As of February 2023, TEIXEIRA’s title was Cyber Defense Operations Journeyman.

Based on the USAF description of this position, it appears to me that Teixeira had held that position—or possibly a related position—for only a few months, and that he was entry level in terms of experience/skills. One would have expected that he would have been more closely supervised at such a beginning level of experience.

Next:

An investigation found that a person who had been posting the documents on social media initially transcribed text from the documents at work, but became concerned he would be discovered.

The person, later identified as Teixeira, “began taking the documents to his residence and photographing them,” charging documents stated.

Here’s the relevant portion from the charging document:

16. According to User 1, the individual using the Subject Username initially posted the Government Information as paragraphs of text. However, in or around January 2023, the Subject Username began posting photographs of documents on Server 1 that contained what appeared to be classification markings on official U.S. Government documents.

…

18. User 1 told the FBI that he spoke to the individual using the Subject Username at various times using a video chat application, voice calls, or the chat function on server 1. According to User 1, during one of those conversations, the individual using the Subject Username explained that he had become concerned that he may be discovered making the transcriptions of text in the workplace, so he began taking the documents to his residence and photographing them.

To me, “taking the documents to his residence and photographing them” means either 1) printing the docs at work or 2) removing them from work using a removable media for printing at home. I would opt for #1, given that some of the documents were incomplete—missing pages. But that’s supposition.

It seems clear that none of this activity—searching, reading, downloading, copying, printing—would have had anything to do with Teixeira’s actual duties, as described. Moreover, as commenter Karen Elliott succinctly explains, anyone engaging in this type of activity within a SCIF should have been caught immediately:

In any well-structured information repository there will be system-wide rules that prevent saving of files in inappropriate locations. Every upload, download, change of document etc is logged and version-controlled. This is easily implemented using fairly basic systems like Sharepoint, let alone on hardened servers. The search tool/s would be hardened too, preventing files of certain classifications from being visible to the search. Every time a document is printed a record is kept. Saving to local disk drives, USB sticks, or to the cloud are prohibited, or should be, sending docs as email attachments too. Photos of the documents were taken by one or more folks at the required security level. EXIF data removed... and after that these can go anywhere, quite literally. And that's what happened.

Far be it from me to underestimate the possibilities of government incompetence. I say that without intending to be snarky. In my previous life I knew many highly competent investigators and administrators, but for this narrative to be true would require a pretty epic level of incompetence—incompetence that would normally be shielded by system wide safeguards rather than personal judgment.