Bill Barr and the DOJ have just caught and charged Henry Kyle Frese – a Defense Intelligence Agency official and Trump hater – for allegedly leaking top-secret classified government information to 2 journalists, one of whom was his girlfriend, according to allegations.
Among the secret documents were details of a foreign nation’s weapon systems, and the journalists that Frese allegedly leaked the information to ended up writing at least 8 articles on the compromised intelligence reports.
Take a look at the breaking news that hit Twitter:
Though it has not yet been confirmed who the journalists were that Frese leaked information to, some folks have done some digging and think that they're most likely Amanda Macias of CNBC and Courtney Kube of NBC News.
Tweets from Henry Kyle Frese's Twitter page show that he not a fan of the president, to put it lightly.
In this one, he ridiculed the crowds at Trump's rally:
In another, he condemned a Trump tweet:
CNBC has more details on Henry Kyle Frese's arrest:
A counterterrorism analyst for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency was arrested Wednesday on federal charges that he leaked top secret and other classified information — including details of a foreign country’s weapons systems — to two reporters in 2018 and this year.
The worker, Henry Kyle Frese, 30, held top-secret clearance at the DIA, where he began as a contractor in January 2017, and eventually became a full-time employee.
One of the journalists who allegedly received secret information from Frese had apparently been involved in a romantic relationship with him, authorities said.
That reporter ended up writing at least eight articles based on at least five compromised intelligence reports leaked by Frese, according to a criminal indictment. Frese retweeted a link to the first article that reporter wrote based on information he had allegedly leaked to her, the indictment says.
“Frese was caught red-handed disclosing sensitive national security information for personal gain,” said John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security.
An indictment alleges that Frese accessed classified intelligence reports, some which were not connected to his job duties, in spring 2018 and provided top-secret information about another country’s weapons systems to a journalist who lived at the same Alexandria, Virginia, residential address as Frese.
The Justice Department said that “based on reviews” of the public social media pages of Frese and that reporter, “it appears that they were involved in a romantic relationship for some or all of that period of time” in which Frese allegedly leaked the information to her.
“The unauthorized disclosure of TOP SECRET information could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States,” the Justice Department said in a press release announcing Frese’s indictment in U.S. District Court in Virginia.
The New York Post added:
The Defense Intelligence Agency worker who was arrested Wednesday for leaking classified information was passing secrets to journalists from CNBC and NBC News, a report said Wednesday.
The reporters aren’t named in the indictment against 30-year-old alleged leaker Henry Kyle Frese, but The Wall Street Journal identified them as CNBC reporter Amanda Macias and NBC reporter Courtney Kube.
Court documents in the case include tweets that correspond to messages sent by Kube and Macias, according to the report.
Chicago Sun-Times gave further details:
A Defense Intelligence Agency official was arrested Wednesday and charged with leaking classified intelligence information to two journalists, including a reporter he was dating, the Justice Department said.
Henry Kyle Frese, 30, was arrested by the FBI when he arrived at work at a DIA facility in Virginia. He was charged with willfully disclosing national defense information.
Frese, who has a top secret government security clearance, is alleged to have accessed at least five classified intelligence reports and provided top secret information about another country’s weapons systems to the reporter with whom he was having a relationship.
The arrest is the latest in a series of prosecutions under the Trump administration of government workers accused of providing nonpublic information to journalists. In 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions pledged to take a stand against leaks, and the Justice Department has brought at least six leak investigation cases in the past two years.
Neither reporter was identified by name in court documents, but an analysis of news articles and social media posts indicates they are Amanda Macias of CNBC and Courtney Kube of NBC News. Those posts include a photo of Macias and Frese on Instagram from 2017.
The Justice Department declined to provide any additional details about the classified information that was leaked, but the articles focused on China’s missile systems.
The reporter, believed to be Macias, published eight articles containing classified defense information between May and July of last year, prosecutors said.
Heavy gave some additional insight:
enry Kyle Frese is the Petagon counter-terrorism analyst who is accused of leaking documents related to North Korea and China to CNBC’s Amanda Macias and another reporter. Macias was his girlfriend, according to court documents and social media posts. Matthew Keys was the first to identify Macias as “Journalist 1” in the complaint and MSNBCs’ Courtney Kube as the other. Keys also named North Korea as the country in question in the criminal complaint.
A criminal complaint filed on October 9 in Eastern District of Virginia federal court stated Frese, 30, had been “caught red-handed disclosing sensitive national security information for personal gain.” The complaint adds that the disclosure of the information, “could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States.” Frese was working for the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was hired in January 2017 as a contractor and then became a full-time employee with the highest possible security clearance.
Frese, of Alexandria, Virginia, will appear in court on October 9. He was charged with two counts of willful transmission of national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, the U>S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a statement. Frese could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He remains in federal custody pending his first court appearance on Thursday. He has not yet hired an attorney.
Shortly after the announcement of Frese’s arrest, CNBC announced that Macias had been suspended. Macias and Kube have not commented.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Frese Was Arrested After He Showed Up for Work on the Morning of October 9
The documents say that Henry Kyle Frese was arrested when he showed up for work on the morning of October 9. The arrest came after he was indicted on the two charges by a grand jury.
Neither reporter was named in the complaint but one was said to have been in a relationship with Frese and shared a home with him between August 2017 and August 2018. Public records reveal that Frese and Amanda Macias lived together in Arlington, Virgina. It’s alleged that Frese’s motivation was to further his own career. The reporter who was Frese’s girlfriend, Macias, had passed the information along to another reporter at an affiliated news organization. Macias appears to have a close relationship with Courtney Kube, who works for MSNBC.
According to a review of articles published by Macias and Kube mentioned in those court documents, the leaked information pertained to China and North Korea. In May 2018, Macias wrote a report for CNBC about China quietly installing missile systems on the strategic Spratly Islands in the contested South China Sea. The information was sourced to a Pentagon official.
In June 2018, Kube, along with two other NBC reporters, wrote a highly publicized report about North Korea increasing nuclear production at secret sites. The report contradicted President Trump’s tweet that same month that “there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea” following his June 12 summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
The investigation into Frese included a wiretap of his phone, which captured a call on September 24, 2019, he had with Kube in which prosecutors say he gave her classified information.
During the investigation, federal agents intercepted Twitter messages and phone calls between Frese and the reporters. In a press release, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division John Demers said that Frese’s arrest was part of the department’s cracking down on leaking in government agencies. Demers said, “Leaks of classified information cause undeniable damage to our national security. Demers told the media that Frese is the sixth person to be charged in the last six years with leaking information.
“Henry Kyle Frese was entrusted with TOP SECRET information related to the national defense of our country,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Zachary Terwilliger said in a statement. “Frese allegedly violated that trust, the oath he swore to uphold, and is charged with engaging in dastardly and felonious conduct at the expense of our country. This indictment should serve as a clear reminder to all of those similarly entrusted with National Defense Information that unilaterally disclosing such information for personal gain, or that of others, is not selfless or heroic, it is criminal.”
Frese holds a top-secret/sensitive compartmented information U.S. government security clearance, prosecutors said.
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