There are some
pictures there are coming in, I believe,
showing some of the law enforcement
activity
there at the family home in Massachusetts
where the arrest was made.
This is now obviously
in the hands of there.
You see the pictures
of someone who is being,
we believe, to be to share
who is being taken into custody
The FBI was preparing to to do this.
They had hoped to have a little more time
as part of this investigation.
But the identity of this person was
was made public
by some of the news
media reports, The New York Times
and, of course,
The Washington Post,
which has been doing
a lot of reporting on this over
the last few days,
reported on his identity.
So I'm told by sources
that the investigation
kind of accelerated
as a result of his identity
becoming public
so now we expect that he's
going to be taken
to a federal court there
in Massachusetts, in Boston,
where the procedure
will begin to remove him
and bring him down
to the Washington, D.C.
area,
where we expect
that the charges are going to be filed
for the again, for his connection
to the leaking of these documents.
At this
point, there's not a lot
we know about the exact charges.
We expect we might hear more
from the attorney general
and from the Justice Department soon
whenever they
they decide to make public
the charges that are to be announced.
But we do know, obviously, that they as
you can hear
from that briefing
just now at the Pentagon,
you know,
they're treating this
as a criminal matter
there believe that
there's some serious national security
damage that has been done
by the exposure of these documents.
The Washington Post
said that
there are as many as 500 documents
that they had seen
on various platforms,
including on these chat rooms, Discord,
which is a which is a gaming platform.
And so that's, of course,
now in the hands of the Justice
Department and prosecutors
who are going to be bringing
the federal charges
against this young man again.
21 year old Jack Teixeira, 21 years
old, a member of the Massachusetts
Air National Guard,
again, those pictures, we believe, of
share of being taken into custody
by the FBI and by the
the investigators there
who have been working this case
frantically over the last few days.
Diana, Erica, Evan, thank you.
Stay with us.
Also joining us, CNN
security correspondent Josh Campbell.
Josh, as we look at the way
all of this is unfolding and again,
if folks are just joining us,
you're looking at these pictures
from our affiliates there
from just moments ago
of object to share.
We believe that the family home
in Dayton,
Massachusetts, which is in the southern
part of the state,
just a little bit
south of of Taunton, Mass.
As one of the things that stood out.
So we just heard in the
Pentagon briefing,
there were specific questions
about
whether certain platforms
like Discord are being monitored.
How long were these documents out there?
And what we heard twice was that,
you know,
part of what DOD does,
they're really monitoring more
on an international level,
not as much domestically, Josh.
So when we look at what is
or is not out there,
what is your sense of
who is monitoring
potential activity on these sites
that could include
sensitive intelligence documents?
Do we know
Well, I
can tell you,
after every major spy case
that we've seen, arrest in U.S.
history, going back to Aldrich
Ames in 94,
Robert Hanssen
who was an FBI agent in 2001
after Chelsea Manning
after reality winter,
after all of these espionage cases,
the government does an after action
and tries to determine
what were the vulnerabilities
how was this information compromised.
And although this arrest is going down
right now,
we believe that that is the suspect
there on your screen.
Know, the spy
hunters are obviously celebrating
that this person
is now being taken into custody.
They are preparing themselves
for the accusations,
the ridicule, the criticism
that's to come.
And that is
how could this information
has been compromised, be compromised.
And it gets exactly to what you were
just saying there.
As far as the systems,
what monitoring is being done,
what tripwires are out there
And so, again,
you know,
the good news for the spy hunters
is that this person is now in custody,
but they have a lot of work to do
to determine
what best practices
may have been violated,
what new best practices
may need to be implemented.
As we look at this video,
I do want to point out one thing
those watching may be wondering,
well, why
why this overwhelming show of force here
where you have
FBI tactical agents
who are now taking someone into custody
who is an accused of a violent act.
This person accused of
disclosing information improperly,
FBI agents
as they prepare their arrest plan,
they will work to determine,
gather every piece of intelligence
that they can as they assess.
Is this a dangerous person?
We know from that stunning Washington
Post report
recently
that the individual
who led this group on this platform,
who we believe to be this
Air Guardsman
who now been taken into
custody, had talked about being a gun
enthusiast had been at gun ranges.
He's obviously a member of the military.
And so the FBI is factoring
that into their determination
about what type of force
you bring to this residence
in order to take
this person into custody.
As we saw at the beginning of the video,
this arrest
obviously taking place outside.
And this is very much textbook.
The FBI operators
there want to control the situation
they don't want to rush up to the house
and rush up to the suspect.
What you saw in that video
is the FBI agents
commanding that officer,
that suspect
right there, calling him
back to the vehicle.
You can see
the agents
there safely tucked
behind that up armored bearcat.
They're bringing the suspect to them.
They have control of the situation.
You see that his head,
his hands are on top of his head.
That obviously
so he doesn't try to reach for a weapon.
They need to ensure that he's secured.
And so we're seeing that very textbook.
They have the indication
that this person may own a gun,
maybe a gun enthusiast.
They don't want to take any chances.
And then we move to the next step.
That that home now is a crime scene,
as we've seen
in all of these major spy cases in
previous history.
The feds will be there for a long time
because, of course,
they need to determine
are there additional classified documents
that are inside that residence.
What we've seen in past cases,
the feds will get their search
warrants lined up ahead of time
in order to go in
and search that top to bottom.
Essentially any
where that a document could be disclosed,
any social media
that this person may have been in
on, any computer device,
any type of phone,
anywhere where a digital file could be
that could pose a risk
to disclosing information
from the federal government
will be searched.
And so we'll have to wait
and see what happens next.
Obviously, authorities
will be looking to determine
whether other
coconspirators, you know, other people
who might have access as well.
But at least the first step
in bringing this
to some type of resolution is now
now appears to be happening,
and that is the arrest of this person.
But of course, the investigation,
there's still so much left to be done.