The US Justice âDepartment accused a government contractor on Friday of leaking national defense information to his girlfriend, the âpublisher of a Substack newsletter.
The FBI arrested Ian Brinksman, 42, on Friday following a search of his Washington home, a Justice Department statement said.
Prosecutors charged him with unlawfully transmitting national defense information.
A federal public defender representing Brinksman declined to comment.
âAs alleged, Brinksman reached far âoutside his own duties to obtain some of our Nationâs most closely held secrets and handed them to âa romantic partner he knew intended to publish them,â John Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for â national security, said in the statement.
âThat is not carelessness. It is a betrayal of his oath and the American âpeople who entrusted him to fulfill his duties honorably,â Eisenberg said.
Brinksman held a top secret security clearance while working as âan employee of a US government agency and later as a developer for systems integration for a private contractor working for the same agency, prosecutors said.
According to the sworn affidavit of an FBI agent investigating the case, Brinksman repeatedly accessed classified intelligence reports and then âcommunicated with the journalist.
The affidavit also cites phone records, database access logs, badge-swipe records, emails and other evidence.
The affidavit âonly identifies the journalist as “Individual 1,” but it cites excerpts from articles she published.
“A fundraising article reportedly published by Individual 1 in âSeptember â 2026 stated ‘over the past year [Individual 1 has] published reporting based on classified [relevant US government agency] assessments that I believe the public deserves to know about,’” the affidavit reads.
That quote appears in a September 28 piece published on the Capital & Empire online newsletter authored by AÃda Chávez.
“Over the past year, Iâve published reporting based on classified CIA assessments that I believe the âpublic deserves to know about,” âwrote Chávez, whose profile â on the site notes that she worked for the Nation and other outlets before she launched the newsletter.
Chávez did not immediately respond to an email message seeking comment.
Investigators allege that âon at least five occasions in 2026, Individual 1 published Substack articles containing information âthat mirrored the â classified reports, some at the top secret level.
On some of those dates, Chávez published articles that cite classified reports, some of them attributed to the CIA.
According to a LinkedIn profile bearing Brinksman’s name, he worked for Deloitte as a manager and â as a âsenior strategy security consultant after having worked as a US State âDepartment foreign service officer at dates corresponding to those outlined in the Justice Department statement.
Deloitte did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The State âDepartment said it needed more time to respond before commenting.
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