Information Henry Kyle Frese passed to journalist appeared in at least eight news reports, DoJ alleges in indictment

A counter-terrorism analyst with the US Defense Intelligence Agency was arrested on Wednesday over charges he had leaked classified materials about a foreign country’s weapons system to two journalists, in 2018 and 2019, the US Department of Justice Department (DoJ) said in federal court filings.

Information that 30-year-old Henry Kyle Frese had passed to a journalist, with whom he was apparently romantically involved, appeared in at least eight different news reports, the justice department alleged in an indictment unsealed in the US district court for the eastern district of Virginia.

The DoJ did not identify the journalists or their news outlets, but said they each worked for a different outlet owned by the same parent company.

Frese “was caught red-handed disclosing sensitive national security information for personal gain”, the DoJ said in a statement. “The unauthorized disclosure of top secret information could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States.”

Frese, who had a high-level security clearance, was due to appear in US district court in Alexandria on Wednesday, charged with willful transmission of national defense information. Authorities said he was arrested on Wednesday morning when he arrived at his workplace in Virginia.

The reporter with whom he was apparently involved, a woman, published eight articles containing classified defense information between May and July 2018, prosecutors said.

In April 2018, after Frese accessed one of the intelligence reports, the reporter sent him a private message on Twitter asking if he would be willing to speak with another journalist, who worked at another outlet owned by the same company. Frese replied that he would help if it could help advance the first reporter’s career because he wanted to see her “progress”.

The government also intercepted a call in September during which Frese allegedly read classified national defense information to the second journalist, according to court documents.

“Frese betrayed the trust placed in him by the American people a betrayal that risked harming the national security of this country,” said John Demers, assistant attorney general, who leads the justice department’s national security division.

This marks the sixth federal case involving leaks of classified information in a little over two years. A crackdown on leakers was initiated by the Trump administration in 2017 and led by then attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

The first case to emerge during the Trump administration involved Reality Winner, a former intelligence analyst who divulged a report about Russian interference in the 2016 election to the Intercept news website. She was sentenced to five years in August 2018.

Another similar case earlier this year involved former intelligence analyst Daniel Everette Hale, who was also charged in connection with leaking information to the Intercept related to a US drone strike program.

Until the criminal case against Winner, no one had been charged with leaking classified information since 2013, said Demers, the head of the justice department’s national security division, in a press call on Wednesday to announce the charges against Frese.