US grand jury indicts Pentagon leak suspect Jack Teixeira

The Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, accused of leaking top-secret military documents, has been indicted on federal felony charges, the US Justice Department said on Thursday.

A federal grand jury in Boston indicted him on six counts of "willful retention and transmission of classified information relating to the national defense."

Each charge provides a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000 (€228,000). The charges are in addition to the two counts filed by prosecutors against Teixeira after his arrest in April.

Biggest breach since Snowden

The 21-year-old Air National Guard IT specialist was arrested in April on charges of sharing highly classified military documents about Russia's war in Ukraine and other top national security issues in a chat room on Discord, a social media platform that started as a hangout for gamers.

Some of the files later appeared on other sites, including Twitter, 4chan and Telegram.

The stunning breach exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia's war in Ukraine, the capabilities and geopolitical interests of other nations, and other national security issues.

It was the biggest such breach since the 2013 dump of National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden and has raised tough questions about access by Teixeira, a junior staffer, to high-level secrets.