Teixeira

Slide over, Steve Garvey. It appears another former Major League Baseball slugger with Southland ties will run for political office.

Mark Teixeira, who batted a robust .358 in a two-month stint with the Angels in 2008 before signing a longterm lucrative contract with the New York Yankees, announced his campaign for Texas’ 21st Congressional District in the U.S. House on Wednesday.

Teixeira, an avowed conservative who has lived in or near Dallas much of his adult life, said he is “ready to help defend President Trump’s America First agenda, Texas families, and individual liberty.”

Garvey is also a Republican, and he lost in a landslide to Democrat Adam Schiff for California’s open seat in the U.S. Senate last November. Despite being a beloved former Dodgers great, Garvey, 75, held few public events and struggled to gain traction with voters in a state that has not elected a Republican to statewide office in nearly two decades.

Unlike Garvey, Teixeira, 45, is running in a heavily Republican district that Chip Roy won by 26% of the vote in November. Teixeira’s announcement follows Roy’s decision not to seek re-election because he is running for the office of the Texas Attorney General.

Teixeira, a former first baseman, played 14 seasons for four MLB teams — the Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, Angels and Yankees. He retired after the 2016 season with 409 career home runs.

The Angels acquired him from the Braves in a trade late in the 2008 season, and he helped them to the only 100-win season in franchise history by hitting 13 home runs and driving in 43 runs while batting .358 in 54 games.

Teixeira also performed well in the American League Division Series, batting .467 with a .550 on-base percentage, although the Angels fell in four games to the Boston Red Sox. He was a free agent after the season and Angels owner Arte Moreno offered him $160 million over eight years before retracting the offer two weeks later.

Several other teams made similar if not more lucrative offers, and Teixeira signed with the Yankees for $180 million over eight years. The slugging switch-hitter helped New York to the 2009 World Series championship, leading the AL with 39 homers and 122 runs batted in.

The Yankees defeated the Angels in the AL Championship Series before beating the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series. The following season, Teixeira spoke highly of the Angels despite leaving Anaheim for the greener pastures of New York.

“I hope there are no hard feelings between Arte and myself,” Teixeira told The Times’ Mike DiGiovanna. “I loved that organization. Arte, [Manager Mike] Scioscia, it’s first class, top to bottom. But your wife and kids being happy is more important than your personal desires.”

Prosecutors sought 17 years imprisonment for ‘significant’ violations of the Espionage Act.

Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard, has been jailed for 15 years for leaking classified documents about the war in Ukraine and other military secrets.

A federal judge in Boston, United States, on Tuesday sentenced the 22-year-old after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to six counts of wilful retention and transmission of national defence information under the Espionage Act.

Prosecutors had argued for a 17-year sentence for Teixeira, saying he “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history”.

“The defendant took an oath to defend the United States and to protect its secrets – secrets that are vital to US national security and the physical safety of Americans serving overseas,” prosecutors wrote. “Teixeira violated his oath, almost every day, for over a year.”

Breach raised questions about US ability to protect secrets

Teixeira, from North Dighton, Massachusetts, was part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, located on Cape Cod.

He worked as a cyber-transport systems specialist – essentially an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks.

Authorities said he shared the classified documents on the messaging app Discord.

Teixeira began by typing out copies that he then published online.

Later, he photographed the files, some of which bore “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET” markings.

The documents included information about allies and adversaries including troop movements in Ukraine and top secret information about Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Teixeira also admitted posting information about a US adversary’s plans to harm US forces serving overseas.

The breach raised questions about the US’s ability to protect its secrets and embarrassed the administration of President Joe Biden, which scrambled to contain the diplomatic and military fallout.

Teixeira’s lawyers asked for a lighter sentence of 11 years, arguing their client had no political goal and was not working as a spy for a foreign government. In their sentencing document, they acknowledged their client had “made a terrible decision which he repeated over 14 months”.

“Instead, his intent was to educate his friends about world events to make certain they were not misled by misinformation,” the lawyers wrote.

“To Jack, the Ukraine war was his generation’s World War II or Iraq, and he needed someone to share the experience with.”

They noted that Teixeira had never been convicted of a crime before.

But prosecutors countered that Teixeira did not suffer from any intellectual disability that would prevent him from knowing right from wrong, adding that his post-arrest diagnosis of “mild, high-functioning” autism was of “questionable relevance” to the case.

‘I wanted to say, ‘I am sorry”

Teixeira apologised to the court for his actions before he was sentenced by the US District Judge Indira Talwani.

“I wanted to say, ‘I’m sorry for all the harm that I brought and caused’,” Texeira said referring to the “maelstrom” he caused family and friends.

“I understand all the responsibility and consequences fall upon my shoulders alone and accept whatever that will bring,” he said. Teixeira hugged one of his lawyers and looked towards his family and smiled before being led out of court.

He cannot be charged with any further Espionage Act violations under the terms of his guilty plea.

A low-level airman, Teixeira pleaded guilty to sharing hundreds of classified files on the social media site Discord.

United States prosecutors will seek a 17-year prison term for an airman who admitted to leaking hundreds of highly classified military documents about the Ukraine war and other national security secrets.

In a sentencing memorandum filed earlier this week, prosecutors said the crime by Jack Teixeira, 22, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, amounted to one of the most “consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history”.

“The defendant took an oath to defend the United States and to protect its secrets — secrets that are vital to US national security and the physical safety of Americans serving overseas,” prosecutors wrote. “Teixeira violated his oath, almost every day, for over a year.”

The classified records were shared last year by Teixeira on the messaging app Discord. Authorities say Teixeira began by typing out copies that he then published online. Later, he photographed the files, some of which bore “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET” markings.

Mossad details

The leaked documents held highly classified information on allies and adversaries, with details ranging from troop movements in Ukraine to intelligence about Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

The breach embarrassed the Pentagon and forced the administration of President Joe Biden to scramble to try to contain the diplomatic and military fallout.

Unlike other leakers of US military secrets, Teixeira’s lawyers say he had no political goal and was not a spy working for a foreign government.

The lawyers are pushing for a lighter sentence of 11 years, saying their client, who pleaded guilty in March, “made a terrible decision” but never meant to harm the US.

“Instead, his intent was to educate his friends about world events to make certain they were not misled by misinformation,” said the lawyers. They also noted that Teixeira has autism and has never been convicted of a crime before.

“Jack has thoroughly accepted responsibility for the wrongfulness of his actions and stands ready to accept whatever punishment must now be imposed,” wrote Teixeira’s lawyers.

Prosecutors countered that Teixeira, who held a top-secret security clearance while working in cyberdefence operations, does not suffer from an intellectual disability that prevents him from knowing right from wrong. They argued that Teixeira’s post-arrest diagnosis as having “mild, high-functioning” autism “is of questionable relevance in these proceedings”.

“Whatever developmental or social difficulties Teixeira may have experienced, his decision to illegally disclose national defence information and put the lives of other people at risk was a volitional choice that he made knowingly, wilfully, and with full awareness of the consequences time and time again,” prosecutors wrote.

Teixeira, who is scheduled to be sentenced on November 12, cannot be charged with further Espionage Act violations under the terms of his guilty plea.