Nathan Vilas Laatch, a former civilian IT specialist with the US Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to attempting to pass classified information to a foreign government.
According to a Justice Department press release, in an email sent to an address tied to a friendly foreign nation, Laatch voiced his dissatisfaction with the current Trump administration’s policies. He handed over a USB drive containing materials marked Confidential and Top Secret to someone he believed had connections to that country. Laatch also indicated he was interested in obtaining citizenship there in return for what he had done.
Roman Rozhavsky, FBI Counterintelligence Division Assistant Director, said in his statement that Laatch had broken his oath by turning over classified information to a foreign government – doing precisely what he was supposed to be guarding against while working in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s insider threat office, a unit entrusted with the country’s most sensitive intelligence.