FBI Arrests CIA Contractor Accused of Leaking Top Secret Reports on Israel and Iran

The FBI arrested a CIA contractor on Friday on suspicion of leaking classified defense and Middle East-related information to a person who then published it online, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said. The suspect is 42-year-old Ian Brinksman, who held a Top Secret security clearance.

According to the DOJ, Brinksman worked for a US government agency based in Virginia starting in 2020. In 2022 he was hired by a contractor serving the same agency. Throughout that period he held Top Secret clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information. CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed in a statement that Brinksman provided services to the CIA as a contractor.

The criminal complaint alleges that Brinksman had an ongoing personal relationship with a person identified only as "Individual 1." She claimed to have published reporting based on classified government intelligence assessments. An affidavit supporting the arrest cites an email Brinksman sent to a friend, saying he had recently begun seeing "a lady" who was a journalist writing on the publishing platform Substack. He said her work focused on foreign policy and that he was "helping her get that off the ground."

The facility where Brinksman worked stores and processes classified information, and for security reasons it bars employees from bringing in cellphones or personal electronics. The DOJ says he was documented on several occasions entering the workplace, accessing particular Top Secret reports, leaving the building, and then speaking by phone with Individual 1.

Shortly after those conversations, the DOJ says, Individual 1 posted Substack articles containing classified information tied to the reports Brinksman had viewed. The affidavit accuses him of sharing details from at least five Top Secret intelligence reports. It says some of the material "reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security" of the United States. None of the reports fell within the scope of his own work.

The DOJ and FBI did not name Individual 1 or her Substack. However, The Jerusalem Post analyzed the affidavit's details and found that the information may align with American journalist Aida Chavez and her articles for the Substack publication Capital & Empire. Ynet and the New York Post have also linked Chavez to the information released by the DOJ.

Chavez has not been charged with any offense connected to the Brinksman investigation, and she has not been officially linked to the case.

The affidavit lists several dates on which Individual 1 allegedly published articles containing leaked classified information. Articles by Chavez on matching dates cite sources described as a "confidential US intelligence assessment," a "classified CIA assessment," and a "classified CIA analysis." Many of the articles in question dealt with Israel, US-Israel relations, and the ongoing war with Iran.