by Adam Goldman and Julian E. Barnes
Hat tip: Dr. Jean-charles Bensoussan
Prosecutors said a contractor shared the names of informants — among the government’s most closely held secrets — to a Lebanese man with ties to an Iran-backed group.
A Minnesota woman who worked as a translator for the military in Iraq was charged on Wednesday with providing highly classified information to an Iran-backed militia group. Prosecutors said she intensified her espionage as tensions between the United States and Iran increased in recent months.
Prosecutors said the
contractor, Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, revealed to a Lebanese man with
ties to Hezbollah the names of foreign informants and details of the
information they provided to the United States. The identities of such
informants are among the government’s most closely held secrets, and law
enforcement officials said Ms. Thompson endangered the lives of the
sources as well as those of military personnel.
The
officials suggested that the potential loss of classified information
was grave and that the prosecution was one of the most serious recent
counterintelligence cases they had seen. Several top national security
prosecutors as well as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia,
Timothy Shea, appeared in court on Wednesday as Ms. Thompson made an
initial appearance before a judge, demonstrating the importance of the
case.
“If true, this conduct is a
disgrace, especially for someone serving as a contractor with the United
States military,” John C. Demers, the assistant attorney general for
national security, said in a statement. “This betrayal of country and
colleagues will be punished.”
The
recruitment of a military contractor with access to such important
secrets shows the strength of the intelligence operations of Iran and
its proxy forces. American officials have long warned that Tehran’s
intelligence work should not be underestimated.
In
interviews with the F.B.I., Ms. Thompson admitted to investigators that
she illegally shared classified information with the Lebanese official,
according to court papers. Ms. Thompson appeared in court dressed in a
red cardigan, her gray-streaked hair in a bun, but was not shackled. The
judge ordered her held until a detention hearing on March 11.
She faces three charges of violating espionage laws. Under the statute,
she could face up to life in prison and possibly the death penalty if
the information she revealed led to the death of any of the informants.
Ms.
Thompson was living in Erbil, Iraq, working on contract as a linguist.
As tensions between the United States and Iran increased in the final
days of December, investigators discovered, Ms. Thompson’s activity on
classified systems did as well. For the next six weeks, she accessed
secret government files that contained the true names and photographs of
American intelligence sources and government cables that outlined the
information they provided to their handlers.
Ms. Thompson’s purported espionage was discovered Dec. 30, days after American airstrikes on Hezbollah’s Iraqi arm and shortly before the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran in a Jan. 3 drone attack that was a serious escalation of President Trump’s growing confrontation with Iran.
The
suspected leaks of classified information came at a critical time when
Iranian proxy forces, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, were looking for ways
to retaliate for the killing of General Suleimani, the architect of
nearly every significant operation by Iranian intelligence and military
forces over the past two decades.
Investigators
searched Ms. Thompson’s living quarters on Feb. 19 and discovered a
handwritten note under her mattress listing the names of informants. The
note, written in Arabic, also included a warning to a military target
affiliated with Hezbollah whom prosecutors did not name and a request
for the informants’ phones to be monitored.
Ms.
Thompson told investigators that she provided classified information by
memorizing it, writing it down, then showing the note to the Lebanese
man when they spoke by video chat on her mobile phone.
The
man took a screenshot of their video chat that showed her displaying a
handwritten note with the name of two informants, court papers showed.
Investigators also found pictures of the Lebanese Hezbollah leader,
Hassan Nasrallah, on the man’s phone.
The
disclosures by Ms. Thompson did not affect the timing of the drone
strike on General Suleimani, suggesting that he was not the target that
she provided information about to the man. According to government
documents, Ms. Thompson had “a romantic interest” in the Lebanese man
with whom she shared the classified secrets.
The man’s nephew worked for the Lebanese government’s interior ministry, according to court documents
released Wednesday. While the current minister of the interior is not a
member of Hezbollah, he has good relations with the group. Hezbollah is
part of the Lebanese government, and the United States considers it a
terrorist organization.
The American
military has taken steps to protect the informants whose identities Ms.
Thompson revealed, according to a government official. It was unclear
why their identifying information was accessible to her, raising
questions about whether the military took adequate steps to protect the
sources who risked their lives to work for the United States.
Former
law enforcement and intelligence officials expressed surprise at the
ease with which Ms. Thompson managed to gather details about informants,
noting that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. make such information about their own
sources extremely difficult to access.
Prosecutors
did not disclose the relative importance of the informants, but even
low-level sources are critical to the United States in understanding the
activities and plans of Iranian proxy groups. If Ms. Thompson’s
disclosures compromised that network, it could complicate the military’s
ability to protect its forces and stop attacks.
The
Pentagon pledged to cooperate with the Justice Department during its
investigation, said a spokeswoman, Alyssa Farah. She said military
officials were “taking all necessary precautions, including the
protection of U.S. forces.”
The
charges against Ms. Thompson were the latest in a string of espionage
cases as the government doubled down on its counterintelligence focus,
seeking to stop the flow of American secrets overseas.
A little over a year ago, the government charged a former Air Force counterintelligence agent, Monica Elfriede Witt,
with sharing secrets with the government of Iran, including the names
of agents run by military intelligence whose covers were blown and the
identities of her former co-workers.
Ms. Witt defected to Iran and remains beyond the reach of law enforcement officials.
But
the government has brought to trial a number of other former
intelligence officers, some of whom were charged with spying for China.
In November, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former C.I.A. officer, was sentenced to 19 years in prison
for conspiring to deliver classified information to China. His
disclosures occurred around the time that the C.I.A.’s informant network
in China was collapsing, though prosecutors did not accuse him of
involvement in the destruction of the spy network.
In May, another former C.I.A. officer, Kevin Patrick Mallory,
was sentenced to 20 years after he was charged with spying for China.
Mr. Mallory was accused of providing Beijing the names of sources who
had helped the American government.
A third China case involved a contractor for the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ron Rockwell Hansen, who was sentenced in September to 10 years in prison.
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Adam Goldman and Julian E. Barnes
Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dod-linguist-arrested-charged-espionage-sharing-identities-us-spies-hezbollah
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