A 28-year-old information technology specialist with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has been arrested for attempting to pass classified materials to a foreign government. This was reported by UNN referring to ABC News.
Details
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that an IT specialist working for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency was arrested on Thursday and charged with attempting to provide classified information to a friendly foreign government.
The FBI said that Nathan Laatsch offered to provide classified information to a foreign government because, according to an informant, Laatsch "disagreed with or did not share the values of this administration" and was willing to share "finished intelligence products, some raw intelligence data, and other miscellaneous classified documentation."
According to the investigation, while communicating with an undercover FBI agent posing as an envoy of a foreign government, Laatsch allegedly transcribed classified information into a notebook at his desk for three days, which he told the agent he was ready to provide.
The foreign country with which Laatsch is accused of attempting to contact is not specified in court documents.
On May 1, the FBI conducted an operation in which Laatsch agreed to hand over classified information on flash drives at a designated location in a public park in northern Virginia.
The information that Nathan Laatsch attempted to transmit allegedly had security levels of "Secret" and "Top Secret."
Reference
According to court documents, Laatsch, who was hired by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in August 2019, worked as a data processing specialist and IT security specialist in the agency's Internal Threats Division.
Recall
This case is the latest in a series of incidents involving the leak of classified information. Earlier, Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for disseminating classified documents on the Discord network.