An analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency is facing charges for allegedly leaking classified national defense information about another country's weapons systems to two journalists, the Justice Department announced.

Henry Kyle Frese, 30, who held a top secret security clearance during his year as an agency contractor beginning in 2017 and then as an agency counterintelligence analyst, was arrested Wednesday morning on his way to work.

Authorities said Frese accessed an intelligence report “related to a certain foreign country’s weapons systems” that was “unrelated to his job duties” multiple times beginning in mid-April through early May 2018 in an effort to further a romantic relationship with a journalist.

The journalist is identifiable as Amanda Macias, a national security reporter for CNBC, whose Instagram account shows her in a photograph with Frese at the Germany Embassy in October 2017 and whose tweets and articles match information provided in DOJ's charging documents.

Frese received a direct message on Twitter from Macias on April 27, 2018, where she asked whether Frese would be willing to speak with a second journalist who worked at another outlet, which authorities said indicated he and Macias had extensively communicated before. Frese said he was willing to help the second journalist as long as that helped Macias in her career. Frese had earlier passed Macias information based on the intelligence report that he had improperly accessed for a story that a second journalist then spoke with a military official about. The official told the second journalist that the military was unaware of the details. Frese called that “weird” and provided Macias with more details from that report.

A few days later, Frese used government systems to search for more information, then spoke with Macias for seven minutes and the second journalist for half an hour. When Macias published her article that day, it contained classified information derived from the intelligence report, and the indictment said Frese retweeted her when she shared a link to the piece.

In a May 2, 2018 article based on “sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity” who had “direct knowledge of U.S. intelligence reports”, Macias wrote that “China has quietly installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three of its fortified outposts west of the Philippines in the South China Sea.” When she tweeted out “yesterday’s scoop on CNBC” the next day, Frese retweeted it, matching the allegation in the indictment.

The DOJ, which monitored and intercepted his text messages and phone calls, said Frese improperly accessed at least five intelligence reports and passed along classified information to the journalists.

Macias wrote multiple other articles citing anonymous sources with knowledge of U.S. intelligence reports, including pieces on Chinese rail guns and Russian hypersonic glide vehicles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Frese continued sharing classified information with both journalists and was still doing so as recently as late September.

Macias, who the DOJ alleged wrote at least eight articles based on leaks by Frese, was not named in the indictment and DOJ declined to say whether they would charge her.

John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, said that Frese was “caught red-handed” passing classified information to a reporter for his “own personal gain.”

Demers compared Frese to Reality Winner, a military contractor who leaked classified National Security Agency information on Russian election interference to the media in 2017, and said DOJ had arrested five additional intelligence community leakers since a speech condemning such leaks by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in August 2017. Attorney General Bill Barr has also said DOJ is taking criminal leaks seriously.

