The US Justice Department on Friday accused a government contractor of passing classified national defense information to his girlfriend, who publishes a Substack newsletter.
The FBI arrested Ian Brinksman, 42, after searching his Washington home, according to a Justice Department statement.
Federal prosecutors charged Brinksman with unlawfully transmitting national defense information.
A federal public defender representing Brinksman declined to comment.
“As alleged, Brinksman reached far outside his own duties to obtain some of our nation’s most closely held secrets and handed them to a romantic partner he knew intended to publish them,” John Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for national security, said in the statement.
“That is not carelessness. It is a betrayal of his oath and the American people who entrusted him to fulfill his duties honorably,” Eisenberg said.
Brinksman had a top-secret security clearance while working for a US government agency. He later served as a systems-integration developer for a private contractor supporting that same agency, prosecutors said.
An FBI agent’s sworn affidavit says Brinksman repeatedly accessed classified intelligence reports and communicated with the journalist under investigation.
The affidavit points to phone records, database-access logs, badge-swipe data, emails and other evidence gathered by investigators.
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The journalist is identified only as “Individual 1” in the affidavit, which nevertheless includes excerpts from articles she published.
The affidavit quotes a fundraising article that Individual 1 reportedly published in September 2026: “Over the past year [Individual 1 has] published reporting based on classified [relevant US government agency] assessments that I believe the public deserves to know about.”
That language appears in a September 28 article published by the Capital & Empire online newsletter and written by Aída Chávez.
“Over the past year, I’ve published reporting based on classified CIA assessments that I believe the public deserves to know about,” Chávez wrote. Her profile says she previously worked for The Nation and other publications before launching the newsletter.
Chávez did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Investigators allege that Individual 1 published at least five Substack articles in 2026 containing information that closely matched classified reports, including documents marked top secret.
On some of those dates, Chávez published stories that referenced classified reports, including several attributed to the CIA.
A LinkedIn profile bearing Brinksman’s name says he worked at Deloitte as a manager and senior strategy security consultant. It also lists previous service as a US State Department foreign service officer, with dates corresponding to those cited in the Justice Department’s statement.
Deloitte did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The State Department said it needed additional time before responding.
