A federal judge ruled Friday that the Massachusetts Air National Guard member accused of leaking top-secret Pentagon documents online should remain jailed until his trial.
U.S. Magistrate Judge David Hennessy said Jack Teixeira had "breached his obligation" to protect U.S. national security information.
Jack Teixeira has his second pre-trial release hearing in a federal court in Worcester, Massachusetts.
During the first hearing a month ago, his attorneys argued that other people accused under the Espionage Act have received bail and assured the judge that Teixeira wouldn't try to leave the country.
However, prosecutors used Teixeira’s online messages to suggest he was a threat to others.
In one post, he said he would "kill a lot of people" to "cull the weak."
This comes on the heels of a Justice Department filing that said Teixeira had been warned about mishandling classified information months before his April arrest.
According to internal memos filed in court, prosecutors said that the 21-year-old had received instructions in September to stop observing and taking notes on classified intelligence information. Despite this warning, he was cautioned once more in October. In February, Teixeira was apprehended once again for accessing information that the memo stated was "not related to his primary duty and was related to the intelligence field," the Associated Press reported.
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Federal prosecutors said Teixeira acknowledged he was breaking regulations, telling a friend that he didn't care "what they say I can or can't share."And they pointed to a video of Teixeira firing guns and uttering racist slurs. The new evidence follows photos FBI agents took of Teixeira's home, claiming he slept two feet from a loaded gun locker and wrote about aspirations to make an "assassination van."
The government's main strategy, is using Teixeira's former words against him successful in the first step of a trial the nation is closely watching.
Back in April, Teixeira was formally charged under the Espionage Act with possessing and disseminating highly classified national defense documents without authorization. Teixeira has not yet entered a plea.
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