In the past few weeks, documents have circulated online related to American national defense interests. It became increasingly clear that classified military information had been leaked to the public. After a major security concern involving American allies, federal authorities have seized the person responsible.

On Twitter and 4chan, documents primarily relating to the Russia-Ukraine War (predominantly concerning the Russian tactics at the ongoing Battle of Bakhmut) made the rounds. It also contained records of aerial confrontations between Russia and NATO. In addition, the leak documents contained information on the involvement of numerous other countries. For example, the leaks revealed that Egypt had planned to send rockets to Russia, and that Britain had sent more than 50 special forces operators to Ukraine. Lastly, the leaks also showed the Mossad (Israel’s intelligence service) “encouraged” the recent anti-Netanyahu protests, something the Israeli government has formally denied.

Immediately the hunt for the leaker began. On Apr. 13, the FBI made an arrest. Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was apprehended on charges of unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information. Teixeira is believed to have over time leaked classified material on a Discord server before sending it to another Minecraft-focused Discord server of which he was an administrator.

The U.S. government immediately spoke with allied nations in order to reassure and continue to solidify alliances. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly met with members of his military in order to address the leaks. For their part, Russian media portrayed the leaks as a false flag disinformation campaign by the U.S. in order to benefit Ukraine in the war.

In the midst of the fallout of Teixeira’s actions, some voices emerged to defend the alleged leaker, including Glenn Greenwald, the journalist responsible for breaking the NSA whistleblower story in 2013. Additionally, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized Teixeira’s arrest due to him being “white, male, christian and antiwar” which allegedly made him “an enemy to the Biden regime,” comments which were denounced by many across the political spectrum.

Mindy Peden, professor of Political Science at John Carroll, spoke about the relative uniqueness of this leak. “I think it is interesting how differently different media outlets are covering this story and what they choose to focus on. I also think about technological changes in reproduction and how that affects what we might want from an intelligence apparatus in a democratic context.”

She continued, “The emerging picture of the latest leaker is one whose motivations are very different from the commitment to democratic institutions we saw in the Pentagon Papers and the commitment to freedom of information from WikiLeaks. Not sharing publicly and rather choosing to share in a small group already distinguishes this from other high profile leakers.”

Teixeira was scheduled to plea on Apr. 19, but the hearing was delayed to give the respective attorneys additional time.