Former Defense Intelligence Agency Employee Pleads Guilty to Leaking - Classified Information to Media Posted: Feb 21st, 2020 - 6:23 am
A former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) employee has pleaded guilty to charges related to the leaking of classified information to two journalists, the Justice Department (DOJ) said.
Henry Kyle Frese, 31, pleaded guilty on Thursday to the willful transmission of top-secret national defense information to journalists. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
Frese was arrested when he arrived to work at a DIA facility in Virginia in October last year where he worked as a counterterrorism analyst. The 31-year-old—who held top-secret government security clearance—was accused of helping the journalists research information on a classified United States government computer system and providing them with classified information from five intelligence reports that he accessed, according to court documents. Some of the information was related to the capabilities of certain foreign countries’ weapon systems. DOJ officials said the information in the report was outside the scope of Frese’s job duties as an analyst.
One of the journalists (referred to as journalist one)—who appeared to be in a relationship with Frese—published eight articles that contained the classified information from the reports between May and July of 2018.
According to court documents, Frese and journalist one lived at the same residential address from January 2018 to November 2018 and followed each other on Twitter. Moreover, Frese re-posted at least two of journalist one’s Twitter posts announcing the publication of articles containing the sensitive information.
During one incident in April 2018, journalist one asked him whether he was willing to speak to another journalist from a different news outlet. Frese said he would if it helped journalist one to “progress,” court documents said.
Officials also intercepted a call where Frese transmitted the classified information to the second journalist on the phone in an attempt to “curry favor with journalist two to advance journalist one’s...
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