Former U.S. Government Contractor Ashbacher Arrested for Allegedly Leaking National Defense Information and Stealing Night Vision Goggles
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 30 that James Thomas Ashbacher, 37, of Spring Lake, North Carolina, a former U.S. government contractor, was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday for allegedly leaking national defense information by posting the information on a popular social media site, unlawfully retaining other national defense information at his residence, and stealing night vision goggles from the U.S. Army's Special Operations Command.
Ashbacher was charged by an indictment unsealed on Tuesday with unlawfully transmitting and retaining national defense information and with theft of government property. According to the indictment, beginning in or about 2021, he worked as an employee of a private company that provided security and emergency management services at the U.S. Army Special Operations Command facility in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and held a Top Secret security clearance with Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) access.
The indictment alleges that Ashbacher photographed and removed without authorization videos and photographs containing images of classified military operations and transmitted the materials to a social media site; the materials were later re-posted by other users to a second social media site. He asked a social media user in a private message to remove some materials, stating that he was "trying to do some damage control." A search of his residence also revealed a classified award write-up containing additional national defense information, along with a night vision goggle system specific to a military unit within Army Special Operations Command that had been reported missing.
The FBI Charlotte Field Office is investigating the case with substantial assistance from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Division. Trial Attorney Leslie Esbrook of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Logan Liles for the Eastern District of North Carolina are prosecuting the case. An indictment is merely an allegation, and Ashbacher is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国联邦调查局总部胡佛大楼（素材库 federal-core 固定图）。GSM 素材库。 / The FBI headquarters J. Edgar Hoover Building. GSM asset library (federal-core pack).
