WASHINGTON — A former Pentagon counterterrorism analyst was sentenced by a federal choose on Thursday to greater than two years in jail for sharing
WASHINGTON — A former Pentagon counterterrorism analyst was sentenced by a federal choose on Thursday to greater than two years in jail for sharing nationwide safety secrets and techniques with a pair of reporters and a guide.
The previous Protection Intelligence Company analyst, Henry Kyle Frese, 32, had pleaded responsible this 12 months in federal court docket in Alexandria, Va., to willful transmission of top-secret nationwide protection data, specifically about international nations’ weapons methods. He had confronted as much as 10 years in jail.
“Frese repeatedly handed categorized data to a reporter, typically in response to her requests, all for private acquire,” John C. Demers, the highest nationwide safety official on the Justice Division, mentioned in an announcement.
The arrest of Mr. Frese was a part of the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on unlawful leaks of categorized data, a push that dates to the second half of the George W. Bush administration and intensified beneath former President Barack Obama.
Mr. Frese admitted to sharing data from April 2018 to September 2019 with the 2 journalists, recognized as Journalist 1 and Journalist 2 in court docket paperwork.
In response to court docket paperwork and social media posts, Journalist 1 was Amanda Macias, a nationwide safety reporter at CNBC, who was Mr. Frese’s girlfriend and shared a house with him.
Ms. Macias revealed eight articles that contained categorized data associated to these weapons methods, prosecutors mentioned. The articles contained delicate materials taken from categorized intelligence studies, they mentioned.
In Might 2018, Ms. Macias reported that China had put in anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile system within the South China Sea. Mr. Frese shared a hyperlink to the article that she had posted on Twitter.
In April 2018, prosecutors mentioned, Ms. Macias launched Mr. Frese to Journalist 2, who has been recognized as Courtney Kube, a reporter for NBC Information masking the Pentagon. Mr. Frese mentioned that he was “down” to assist Ms. Kube if it helped Ms. Macias’s profession “progress.”
Prosecutors mentioned that at the very least 30 instances in 2018, Mr. Frese searched categorized authorities methods for data he mentioned with the reporters.
And from early 2018 to October 2019, Mr. Frese communicated with an worker of an abroad consulting group utilizing social media, in accordance with court docket papers. On at the very least two events, prosecutors mentioned, Mr. Frese transmitted categorized data to the guide, who was not named.
As a part of its investigation, the F.B.I. wiretapped Mr. Frese’s cellphone and intercepted a few of his textual content messages and telephone calls. The federal government additionally obtained information from Twitter, the place he communicated with one of many reporters.
Mr. Frese’s legal professionals had argued in a court docket submitting shortly earlier than he was sentenced that he didn’t deserve greater than 12 months and at some point, noting that his disclosures included no sources or strategies of intelligence-gathering, that are among the many authorities’s most carefully held secrets and techniques.
Additionally they cited situations the place Mr. Frese requested Ms. Macias to carry off on publishing data from different sources as a result of he thought it could compromise nationwide safety.
The legal professionals mentioned Mr. Frese met Ms. Macias after a traumatic breakup with a long-term girlfriend. His legal professionals mentioned Ms. Macias’s “profession was stalling, and she or he would ask Mr. Frese to share data.” They mentioned he was a “devoted patriot” who was “notably prone to strain and affect.”
“He did so for the aim of serving to her advance her profession and with the hope of enhancing their relationship,” they wrote.
“Mr. Frese engaged in his regrettable conduct at a time of clouded judgment and in a misguided effort to salvage a relationship that was not price saving,” his legal professionals wrote in a court docket doc filed on Wednesday. “For that he’ll all the time be sorry.”
A CNBC spokesman declined to remark.