Former CIA Officer Arrested for Disclosure of National Defense Information

The FBI reported that a former CIA officer was arrested today on charges that he illegally disclosed national defense information.

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, 43, of O’Fallon, Missouri, was charged in a 10-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Dec. 22, 2010, and unsealed today. According to the indictment, Sterling was employed by the CIA from May 1993 to January 2002. From November 1998 through May 2000, he was assigned to a classified operational program designed to conduct intelligence activities related to the weapons capabilities of certain countries, including an undisclosed country “Country A” which sources are saying is Iran.

“The indictment unsealed today alleges that Jeffrey Sterling violated his oath to protect classified information and then obstructed an investigation into his actions. Through his alleged actions, Sterling placed at risk our national security and the life of an individual working on a classified mission,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer. “Those who violate the law, and the trust placed in them by the U.S. government to keep our national security information secure, must be held accountable.”

The indictment alleges that Sterling took a number of steps to facilitate the disclosure of the classified information, including:

• Stealing classified documents and other information from the CIA and unlawfully retaining those documents without the authority of the CIA

• Communicating by telephone, via e-mail and in person an author in order to arrange for the disclosure of or to disclose classified information to the author

• Meeting with an author in person to orally disclose classified information to the author and to provide documents containing classified information to the author for review or use

• Characterizing the classified information in a false and misleading manner as a means of inducing the author to write and publish a story premised on that false and misleading information

• Deceiving and attempting to deceive the CIA into believing that he was a former employee adhering to his secrecy and non-disclosure agreements

• Deliberately choosing to disclose the classified information to a member of the media, knowing that such an individual would not reveal his identity, thereby concealing and perpetrating the scheme.

Michael Isikoff of NBC News covers the story on Alexander’s leaking of classified information on the secret U.S. effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program to New York Times reporter James Risen. The FBI Press Release announcing the indictment is also available. 

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