A Massachusetts Air National Guard agent was convict on Tuesday to 15 years in federal prison for one of the largest leaks of government secrets in US history. The sentencing of 22-year-old Jack Teixeira follows guilty plea to allegations that he knowingly shared classified information with unauthorized persons on the Discord chat platform.

The conviction of Teixeira, whose online leak of government secrets about everything from the war in Ukraine to Iran’s nuclear program went undetected by authorities for months, is the latest development in a case that has major questions about the military’s vetting process and how classified information involving the US. national security is protected.

The Washington Post and FRONTLINE investigated Teixeira and the massive leak of national security secrets in the December 2023 documentary The Discord Leaks.

From an award-winning team that included FRONTLINE directors Thomas Jennings and Annie Wong and Post reporters Shane Harris, Samuel Oakford and Chris Dehghanpoor, the documentary explored how more than 300 pages containing highly classified government information ended up being leaked on Discord, a privacy-oriented platform popular among teenage gamers.

The film further explored Teixeira’s online world and his history of violent threats, racism and conspiracy theories and examined why a young man with a troubled past was able to obtain a security clearance.

“Once you start looking back, you see failure, failure, failure, failure, failure,” Mark Zaid, a national security attorney, said of Teixeira’s case in the documentary. “There were countless missed opportunities, literally from the start. And as a result, we have one of the worst cases of leakage in modern times.”

The day before the documentary aired, Air Force informed Congress that he disciplined 15 members of the Air National Guard in connection with failures that allowed Teixeira to share highly classified information.

The film raised difficult questions about how the military’s vetting process approaches applicants’ Internet activity.

“The military’s vetting system is pretty robust and catches a lot of things,” said Lt. Gen. Scott Rice, director of the Air National Guard from 2016 until his retirement in 2020. The post and FRONTLINE in the documentary. But he admitted “it’s not perfect and some things go through.”

Building on months of groundbreaking reporting by The post and new, collaborative reporting with FRONTLINE—including exclusive on-camera interviews with Teixeira’s close online confidantes and Discord’s vice president of trust and safety—the documentary also offers a powerful look at online radicalization and the role of platforms like Discord in one among the largest leaks of classified information in recent history.

For the full story, watch The Discord Leaksembedded below and explore The Washington Posthis related reporting:

The documentary is also available for viewing at pbs.org/frontline, washingtonpost.comin The PBS appon FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel and in PBS Prime Documentaries Channel.

Patrice Taddonio, Senior Digital Writer, FRONTLINE