US President Joe Biden delivers remarks to Defense Department personnel during a visit to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., February 10, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

i24 News – A 21-year-old national guardsman was in custody Friday after he was arrested on suspicion of leaking a trove of sensitive US government secrets. The incident is believed to be the most serious US security breach since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010.

Jack Teixeira was an airman 1st class at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, according to his service record. He joined the Air National Guard in 2019 and worked as a “Cyber Transport Systems Journeyman,” or an IT specialist.

Teixeira was expected to make an initial appearance in a Massachusetts federal court as early as Friday. Meanwhile US media was rife with revelations about his activities on the forum which he used to chat about closely guarded U.S. secrets, as well as topics such as his religious faith, his views on gun control and his favorites memes.

According to The New York Times, a “trail of digital evidence” pointed to Teixeira as the leader of the private group on Discord, called Thug Shaker Central, where the documents surfaced.

Teixeira, who went by “OG” on the message board, had a “dark view of the government,” and “spoke of the United States, and particularly law enforcement and the intelligence community, as a sinister force that sought to suppress its citizens and keep them in the dark.”

But there was also questionable fun to be had in the invitation-only chatroom, where between 20 and 30 participants talked about their favorite types of guns and also shared memes and jokes, typically of an explicitly racist nature.

“This guy was a Christian, anti-war, just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on,” one participant said. “We have some people in our group who are in Ukraine. We like fighting games, we like war games.”

In a video seen by the Washington Post, a man identified as Teixeira is seen at a shooting range with a large rifle, making racial and anti-Semitic slurs on camera.