Nathan Villas Laatsch, an information technology specialist with the Defense Intelligence Agency holding top security clearance, is facing allegations of attempting to provide classified information to a foreign nation due to his discontent with the Trump administration.

The Justice Department’s press release and an arrest affidavit reveal that Laatsch, part of the DIA’s Insider Threat Division, attempted to transmit classified national defense details to someone he thought was a foreign government agent.

Unfortunately for the suspect, they were actually corresponding with an undercover FBI agent. The documents did not identify the country of the would-be agent.

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The inquiries into Laatsch’s behavior began in March of this year, after the FBI said it was provided with an email from a sender offering to provide classified information to a “friendly foreign government.” It is unclear to what email address the suspect was writing.

The email from the sender reportedly had the subject line: “Outreach from USA Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Officer.”

In the body of the email, after stating their role in the DIA, the sender wrote: “The recent actions of the current administration are extremely disturbing to me … I do not agree or align with the values of this administration and intend to act to support the values that the United States at one time stood for,” per the affidavit.

“To this end, I am willing to share classified information that I have access to, which are completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation,” Laatsch allegedly went on to say, adding that he had “intimate knowledge of how DIA tracks and monitors user activity.”

The emails reportedly included a username to an encrypted messaging platform and copies of two federal ID cards — “images of badges that I use to enter workspaces.” Even though identifying information was redacted from the photos, other information present helped investigators locate Laatsch as their suspect.

Laatsch, 28, of Alexandria, Virginia, began working for the DIA in 2019. Through his work as a data scientist and IT specialist of information security, he assisted law enforcement on “insider threat tools,” had access to “highly compartmentalized classified programs,” and must have “signed a lifetime binding non-disclosure agreement in which he would have acknowledged that the unauthorized disclosure of protected information may invoke criminal penalties,” the affidavit from an FBI special agent states.

In April, communication between the suspect and the FBI agent sped up, with Laatsch allegedly dismissing concerns over the nature of his actions because, he said, “I do not see the trajectory of things changing, and do not think it is appropriate or right to do nothing when I am in this position,” referring to the federal government’s efforts.

He is accused of then transcribing classified information from his computer to a notepad at his desk, and, over the course of about three days, surreptitiously leaving work with the information — even by appearing to place folded papers “in his socks before departing.”

On May 1, Laatsch allegedly conducted a “dead drop operation” where he went to a park in Arlington and dropped off a thumb drive containing the transcribed information. About a week later, he is alleged to have requested citizenship from the unnamed country because he did not “expect things here to improve in the long term.”

The undercover FBI agent proceeded to ask for more.