Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who recently pleaded guilty to leaking classified documents, is now set to face military charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
In the federal criminal case, Teixeira pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act, admitting that he shared classified documents on the social media platform Discord. His sentencing on those counts is scheduled for September.
Experts told GBH News it is unusual for a military trial to follow a federal conviction, but the charges are distinct from those Teixeira faced in federal court and could carry institutional implications. Teixeira, according to the Air Force Times, faces one count of disobeying a lawful order and two counts of obstructing justice — violations that are different than those within the civilian criminal legal system.
The Article 32 hearing on Tuesday is a military proceeding similar to a preliminary hearing, and it determines whether a case moves forward to a military court trial. The hearing will allow a “neutral and detached officer” to hear evidence and information and recommend whether the military-specific charges against Teixeira should move forward to trial, according to a previously released statement from the Air Force.
Attorney Gary Barthel, founder of the California-based Military Law Center, explained that typically, a commanding officer would initiate an administrative procedure to give a service member an “other than honorable” discharge rather than pursue military charges. If the case goes to a military trial and Teixeira is found guilty, he would have a military-specific conviction and could face additional punishment, including dishonorable discharge.
“Obviously, the civilian courts cannot award [a dishonorable discharge] and that effectively would ban him from ever re-enlisting or joining the military again,” Barthel explained. The punitive action would also bar him from possessing a gun.
Victor Hansen, a professor specializing in military legal matters at New England Law, agreed that military charges following a federal case are out of the ordinary, but added they may carry institutional implications.
“Certainly, the Air Force was embarrassed by the revelations of the very sensitive and classified information,” he said. “It could be possible that the Air Force is looking to regain a little bit of legitimacy by prosecuting him in the military courts as well as what's already happened in federal court to send a message to others — other airmen, other service members, to the larger community — that the Air Force takes this stuff seriously, and they're going to punish it as well as whatever happens in federal court.”
While the most dramatic portion of Teixeira’s trial may be over, Hansen said other investigations or other disciplinary actions are being imposed on “members of the chain of command or others who created a lax environment or failed to enforce better and stricter compliance with the handling of classified information.”
“That's likely to have been handled internally within the Air Force or the Department of Defense and they don't typically make those kinds of investigations very public,” Hansen said.
According to the Military Times, more than a dozen people within Teixeira’s chain of command have been disciplined over the leak. The unit he was a part of is also no longer handling sensitive information, the reporting said.
