Denied a Gun License Over School Threat, Accused Leaker Jack Teixeira Later Got Top-Secret Clearance

The episode, which was reported to local police, was one of several that Airman First Class Jack Teixeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard admitted had been problematic—to authorities weighing his application for a gun license, to investigators who ultimately granted him a security clearance, and to fellow online gamers with whom he allegedly offered to share classified documents, according to documents prosecutors filed in federal court late Wednesday. 

Airman Teixeira is charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. He has yet to enter a plea.

Prosecutors are seeking to keep Airman Teixeira jailed while his court case proceeds, arguing he is a dangerous flight risk who might still have access to sensitive material that could aid foreign adversaries. He has been jailed since his arrest earlier this month. A judge didn’t immediately issue a ruling after a Thursday detention hearing.

Defense attorney Brendan O. Kelley told a federal judge Thursday that his client was a “21-year-old kid” who still lives in his hometown, and said he would stay with his father if released while his criminal case proceeds.

Airman Teixeira “accessed and may still have access to a trove of classified information that would be of tremendous value to hostile nation states that could offer him safe harbor and attempt to facilitate his escape from the United States,” prosecutors said late Wednesday in a court filing.

Photo Illustration: Madeline Marshall

That Airman Teixeira, who was denied a permit to own a gun over police concerns about violent threats at his high school, could soon be granted a security clearance suggests lapses in the clearance process, say current and former national security officials.

The U.S. government’s process for granting clearance is geared toward weeding out individuals with financial problems, suspicious overseas ties, a pattern of drug use, or disqualifying criminal records. It is less focused on reviewing social-media postings.

“Repugnant views and having lots of guns in your bedroom are not automatically going to disqualify you for a security clearance,” said Glenn Gerstell, the former top lawyer at the National Security Agency. It is “not an easy problem to solve.”

Nor is it clear the material presented by prosecutors, including Airman Teixeira’s purported social-media posts celebrating and threatening mass murder, would have turned up in routine counterintelligence-focused screenings, Mr. Gerstell said.

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which approves clearances for the U.S. military, said its vetting regularly “cleared individuals’ background to ensure they continue to meet security clearance requirements.” The process “does not include automated checks of social media or chat rooms.”

In addition, the U.S. government has for decades struggled to attract sufficient IT and cybersecurity talent, competing with the much higher starting salaries of the private sector.

Evan Lesser, president of ClearanceJobs.com, which connects employers with potential employees who have clearances, said his site lists about 75,000 jobs that require security clearances and about 65% to 70% of those are in information technology or engineering. The need to fill so many critical jobs may sometimes contribute to less robust vetting standards, former officials have said.

In March 2018, when he was a sophomore at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School, Airman Teixeira was suspended after a classmate “overheard him make remarks about weapons, including Molotov cocktails, guns at the school, and racial threats,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. 

That episode prompted Massachusetts authorities twice to deny the B-average student a firearms identification card, a license to possess and carry guns issued by local police departments. Authorities cited local police concerns about his actions in high school. 

The following year, after graduating high school, he joined the Air National Guard’s 102nd Air Intelligence Unit, where his stepfather, a service member for 34 years before retiring, had also served. By 2020, he had completed basic training and received a top-secret clearance. 

In a November 2020 letter to a firearms officer—now his third effort to get a gun license—Airman Teixeira cited his security clearance as a reason he could be trusted to possess a firearm, according to court documents. 

He wrote that before joining the military and obtaining his clearance, investigators had learned of the incident at his high school and had reviewed records pertaining to the event, including police reports and school letters.

“I was very concerned that decisions I made at age 16 would haunt my future in serving my country in the military, and I am glad they did not,” Mr. Teixeira wrote. “With wearing the uniform, and being a representative/ambassador of the United States Air Force, and now having a Top Secret clearance, I now represent much more than myself and need to watch what I say and do in public and in private, as it affects more than just myself.”

He continued, “I will be required to show that I can be a responsible and upstanding person in order to maintain and keep my Top Secret clearance, and that I am to be held responsible for anything that I do or say.”

The Air National Guard had “given me the tools to be an outstanding Airman and an upstanding citizen,” Airman Teixeira wrote.  

Massachusetts authorities granted him the gun license.

In 2021, Airman Teixeira received more advanced training in IT and cybersecurity at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, according to service records prosecutors filed in court. By February 2022, Airman Teixeira had gained access to documents far beyond what he needed for his job, according to prosecutors’ court filings. 

His calls for violence also are a persistent topic in his messages. In one of his earliest messages, he wrote he hoped Islamic State successfully carried out a purported planned attack at the World Cup. “If I had my way,” he wrote, he would kill a “ton of people,” adding a four-letter expletive. One month later, he began leaking top security documents, according to the prosecution’s court filings.  

By early 2023, the 21-year-old admitted sharing national security secrets, told his online associates that he was rooting for groups like Islamic State, and used his government computer to search terms like “Las Vegas shooting” and “Uvalde,” referring to the May 2022 shooting in Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers, according to court documents. When news of his actions began to appear in the media, prosecutors said, he asked his friends to delete all messages and remain silent. Federal prosecutors said he had a cache of weapons, some of which he kept just feet from his bed. 

By April 2023, he posted 40,000 messages on Discord, a social-media outlet popularized by videogame enthusiasts. A fellow chat room member asked Airman Teixeira whether what he was releasing was classified. “No one knows how to identify me,” Airman Teixeira replied, according to court documents. 

In the days leading up to his arrest earlier this month, Airman Teixeira smashed his tablet, Xbox console and iPhone and threw them in the dumpster, in an apparent bid to eliminate evidence, according to court documents filed in his case by the prosecution. 

On March 19, he signaled he wanted to stop, writing, “I was very happy and willing and enthusiastic to have covered this event for the past year and share with all of you something that not many people get to see something very few people in fact, get to see, but despite all of this, I’ve decided to stop with the updates.”

—Dustin Volz contributed to this article.

Write to Nancy A. Youssef at [email protected] and Sadie Gurman at [email protected]

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