Lindsey Graham slams Marjorie Taylor Greene for defending leak of classified documents

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) slammed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Sunday for comments she made last week defending the 21-year-old National Guardsman suspected of leaking classified documents online.

“[Jack] Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime. And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more,” Greene, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said on Twitter following Teixiera’s arrest Thursday. "Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”

Graham denounced Greene’s comment, calling it “one of the most irresponsible statements you could make.”

“There are military members serving today from Georgia and other places who are less safe because of what this airman did,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week.” “There is no justification for this, and for any member of Congress to suggest it's OK to leak classified information because you agree with the cause is terribly irresponsible and puts America in serious danger.”

Teixiera, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, is accused of uploading dozens of secret documents detailing sensitive intelligence and defense information on the social media website Discord. He was arraigned in a Boston court on Friday, charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of classified national defense information.

The leak is seen as potentially having serious implications for Ukrainians on the battlefield and has frustrated several U.S. allies.

Graham, who was speaking from Israel after wrapping up a trip to Saudi Arabia, said the leak has been “very damaging” in the region.

“There's information about the air defense capability of the Ukraine and everybody in the region [is] really worried because who wants to share information with the United States if you're gonna read about it in the paper or find it on the internet? This has done a lot of damage to us in the region,” Graham said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misstated the branch of the militia that Jack Teixiera is a member of.