US says former NSA employee pleads guilty to attempted espionage

[October 24, 2023]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former employee of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) on Monday pleaded guilty to six counts of attempting to transmit classified national defense information (NDI) to someone he thought to be a Russian agent but turned out to be an FBI covert employee, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 31, of Colorado Springs, admitted that between August and September 2022, in order to demonstrate both his "legitimate access and willingness to share," he used an encrypted email account to transmit excerpts of three classified documents to an individual he believed to be a Russian agent, the Justice Department said.

In reality, that person was an FBI online covert employee, according to prosecutors.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Jasper Ward in Washington)

[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.