Led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the far-right is hailing the 21-year-old air national guardsman who allegedly leaked top secret Pentagon documents as a national hero.
Jack Teixeira was arrested by FBI agents on Thursday afternoon “without incident” at his home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, the Department of Justice said in a statement. Teixeria was taken into custody in relation to the “alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference.
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The 21-year-old is accused of being the leader of an online chat group consisting of a couple of dozen young men, many of whom were based outside the U.S. The group shared an enthusiasm for guns, military gear, God, and video games. The chat room, which was set up as a way for Teixeira to impress a group of friends he had made on other gaming chat rooms, was also filled with deeply racist and antisemitic language.
Teixeira is accused of sharing top secret documents related to U.S. military operations, including the ongoing war in Ukraine, which he obtained in his role as an “cyber transport systems specialist.” That position gave him a top secret clearance level, as he was required to help protect the networks such documents were stored on.
One former Justice Department official told The Guardian that each of the hundreds of documents allegedly leaked by Teixeira could potentially carry a prison sentence of 10 years.
But for far-right lawmaker Greene, the young air national guardsman’s alleged actions were, well, heroic.
“Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and anti-war,” Greene tweeted on Thursday night, misspelling the suspect’s name. “That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime.”
Greene said all Teixeira did was “tell the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more. Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”
Greene appears to have forgotten that she labeled the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme court decision in Roe v Wade as “basically like an insurrection of the Supreme Court.”
Greene’s comments were slammed by Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who accused the Georgia Congresswoman of “siding with one of the biggest traitors America has seen.”
“I’m sorry, Marge, being white, male, and Christian is not license to betray your country and put the lives of thousands at risk,” Swalwell continued. “But this wouldn’t be the first time she sided with traitors.”
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson joined Greene in applauding Teixeira’s alleged actions. In his Thursday night show, Carlson claimed Teixeira’s arrest was designed to cover up a covert, illegal U.S. presence in Ukraine, and as punishment for contradicting “the National Security State and their obedient servants in the media.”
Carlson then went on to claim the U.S. government was treating Teixeira worse than it treated Osama Bin Laden—who was killed in a compound in Pakistan in 2011 by a team of Navy SEALS who then buried his body in the sea.
“Tonight, the news media are celebrating the capture of the kid who told Americans what’s actually happening in Ukraine,” Carlson said. “They are treating him like Osama Bin Laden, maybe even worse actually, because, unlike Al Qaeda, apparently, this kid is a racist.”
On the rabidly pro-Trump message board known as The Donald, members were openly hailing Teixeira as a hero for what he had done.
Among the numerous threads dedicated to his arrested were ones titled: “Fucking Legend” “May God Watch Over Him,” and “American Hero Busted for Telling the Truth.”
Despite the fact that Teixeira specifically told those on his private Discord server not to share the documents with anyone else, many figures on the far-right sought to portray the 21-year-old as a whistleblower, comparing him to Edward Snowden.
“Free the whistleblower from Massachusetts! Teixeira is an American hero,” actor-turned-conspiracist Randy Quaid tweeted.
