We have breaking news. The Air Force says 15 airmen
are now being disciplined in the investigation of accused leaker
Jack Teixeira.
The Pentagon says the service members failed to take proper
action after becoming aware of Teixeira's intelligence seeking activities.
But a newly released investigation found no evidence Teixeira's immediate
superiors were aware that he was allegedly sharing some of
the country's most sensitive secrets online.
Senior Pentagon reporter Louis Martinez joins me now for more
on this,
Louis. According to the Air Force,
these 15 airmen ranging in rank from Staff Sergeant to
Colonel have been removed from their positions and have received
non judicial administrative punishments.
What more do you know about why they're being disciplined,
Diane? It all has to do with the Air Force
Inspector General's review of the whole situation that resulted from
the the Jack Teixeira leaks.
They wanted to see exactly what was going on inside
the 102nd intelligence wing up there in Massachusetts,
where Teixeira was serving as an IT specialist.
They wanted to see whether he had access to the
right information and whether he had that right to know
access.
And what they found was that there was a whole
conflation of the idea of having an airman being able
to know sensitive intelligence information while having access to it.
Why? Which is what he needed to with the access
to those computers that he was working on as an
IT specialist.
So that review has led to what is now these
15 punishments that are being given out to these airmen
in his chain of command.
We have seen some of his immediate superiors who have
lost that chain of command.
We've seen others now will be getting these what are
said to be non judicial punishments.
What that means it's administrative,
like a letter of reprimand or something that essentially ends
someone's military career because they won't be able to be
a promoted.
But what the real thing that's going out here is
that this review found that these officials were being waxed
in their oversight of Teixeira.
They knew that he was looking at some of the
files that he shouldn't have,
but didn't carry out any further actions.
And they also said that they found that they were
in,
there was not a good chain of command follow through
about what to do with the information flow that was
taking place in this.
This is base. This is an Air National Guard base
in Cape Cod,
MA. They had access to a lot of sensitive information.
And what the investigation found was that the chain of
command there was very LAX in overseeing the rules that
have been in place to ensure that something like this
doesn't happen. You have the Air Force secretary saying out
loud today that in a statement that what whenever the
Air Force finds something like this,
they're going to take serious action.
And that's what we're seeing today,
Diane.
And Louis, the Air Force's internal review is separate from
the Justice Department's criminal investigation.
But could it impact the Justice Department's case?
No, that's a good possibility.
Diane. It's unclear. They the Air Force is making really
sure to that it
in their public statements that this is a separate investigation
from the criminal probe.
That criminal probe has charged Teixeira with six counts of
violations of Nash of the National Security Act.
And So what by posting them on the Discord channel
earlier this year. But they want to stress that the
information that is here right now,
and it's an 8 page release,
it's it's a very lengthy review,
but publicly only 8 pages of it are being made
public. So that kind of gives you an idea that
they're speaking in broad terms.
They want to get the information out there,
but they're only speaking very broadly.
So that I guess that bodes well for the criminal
case because that will deal more in the specifics.
Now Teixeira has pleaded not guilty.
He's awaiting a trial date.
So what happens next? Well,
the next case is the the,
the discovery, obviously, the information that's being placed
into the hands of his defense attorneys to see exactly
what it is that the government's case is.
That case is proceeding. It's unclear exactly when the trial
will take place.
We have the legal proceedings that have been taking place.
But specifically when a trial that takes place,
it's unclear, but it's going to be very interesting to
see,
as I mentioned earlier, what the specifics are of who
knew when they knew it and what did they actually
do.
Because in this report, we're just getting those broad strokes.
All
right. ABC News senior reporter,
Pentagon reporter Louie Martinez. Lou,
thank you.