say he really didn t consider himself to be a whistleblower. but again, someone who was trying to impress his friends. we re still trying to get a clear picture of exactly how authorities caught up with him but we do know he had a top-secret security clearance and that would have given him access to a computer network that stored top-secret information and would have given him the ability to read and print that information, so that s part of the process, jose. david, i know you studied all of the legal documents in this case what do you make of them so far? well, significant that he abused his top-secret clearance and violated the trust put in him by the government. relatively easy to prove charges. he had access to, possessed them, disseminated them and he s looking at ten years per count in the guidelines, it s at least in the ten, 11 year range so threw away his career away for
webber, our conversation ahead of the curtain call for broadway s longest running show. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. good evening, and welcome on this friday. we begin tonight with the scene in a massachusetts federal courthouse where a young national guard airman made his first appearance since his dramatic arrest yesterday in connection with the leak of u.s. classified intelligence files. 21-year-old jack teixeira with members of his family in the courtroom as the government previewed some of the evidence against him. teixeira, who had a top secret security clearance, faces charges under the espionage act related to the unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information. authorities believe teixeira shared the materials, many related to the war in ukraine, with an online community of friends. andrea mitchell starts us off now with late details. reporter: jack
and posted the secrets for them to see. he was a very smart man. there is no way he would not know that he knew these were illegal. reporter: someone spread those post barbie on the small chat group and they made their way around the world. to share held top-secret security clearance. federal prosecutors say he improperly and unlawfully retained and transmitted national defense information to people not authorized to receive it causing serious damage to the national security of the united states. court record said teixeira began posting classified information on discord in december. first as paragraphs of text, then when he allegedly became concerned he could be discovered copping material at work, he began taking the documents to his residence and photographing them. prosecutors suggested his fears of getting caught may have deepened last week on the very day report started circulating about the intelligence documents the fbi said teixeira started searching on his office computer
by skechers kids slip ins. i wish there was an easier way for your kids to put on their shoes. there is new hands free sketcher slip in the fastest, easiest way to put on shoes and they re machine washable. try new skechers slip ins. that massive leak of classified u. s documents tops our world lead today. jack to shira. relatively low ranking 21 year old airman for the massachusetts air national guard, was in court in boston today to share his facing two charges, including one for violation of the espionage act. this is over his unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense in formation. allegedly he was arrested yesterday. the leaks have already strained relationships with us allies and jeopardized access to crucial information that gave the u. s government insight into russia s moves in ukraine. despite all this, an official tells cnn that to shira underwent quote a very rigorous background check and held a top secret security clearance since 2021 cnn s jason carroll i
but ken dilanian is with us this morning. what is the latest on this good morning. the intelligence community is scrambling, first of all, to try to figure out who this leaker is but also to try to prevent this from happening again and re-evaluating their approach to social media platforms like discord. this is a really thorny issue, jose the fbi would need a warrant to eavesdrop on a private chat room of the kind that was described in that washington post article where the documents were first posted so, they would first have to know the crime was being committed. that s a really difficult thing. when people get a top secret security clearance, they do authorize the government to monitor their social media generally. but you have to know where it is and so, if this person didn t disclose that he was doing the stuff in discord, that goes some way to explaining why this stuff was sitting there for as long as a year according to the account given to the washington post, before the