A contractor who worked for the CIA was arrested on Friday and charged with passing Top Secret reports to a journalist he was dating, who repeatedly published classified information in her Substack newsletter, the Justice Department said.
Ian A. Brinksman, 42, of Washington, was taken into custody after FBI agents searched his home, according to a Justice Department press release. He is charged by criminal complaint with unlawfully transmitting national defense information, an offense that carries up to 10 years in prison.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the case began with “a referral from the Agency” and described Brinksman as “a contractor who provided services to CIA.” “The unauthorized release of classified material poses grave risks to our national security, intelligence sources, ongoing operations, and our officers,” Ratcliffe said. “There is absolutely zero tolerance for leaking, and anyone who violates their oath will be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The government’s evidence is laid out in an FBI agent’s affidavit filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. It says that between March and October 2026, Brinksman opened five Top Secret reports that the filing says were outside the scope of his work, and that articles drawing on each of them later appeared on the Substack page of a person the filing calls “Individual 1.”
Investigators also relied on phone and computer records. The affidavit says the two exchanged “more than 800 calls or attempted calls” this year. It says that no more than six people visited the Substack page from Brinksman’s federal workplace during the period under review, and that he was the only one of them who both read all five articles and opened the matching reports.
On Oct. 10, according to the filing, investigators examining a notebook on his desk found that “the corners of several pages were torn out.” The affidavit quotes a November 2025 email in which Brinksman wrote, “The lady I’ve been seeing is a journalist and recently went independent.” The release said Individual 1 had written on her social media profile, “I also accept leaks.” The affidavit does not say what the leaked reports were about.
Reuters identified the journalist as Aída Chávez, who writes the Substack newsletter Capital & Empire. The news agency cited a September post in which she wrote: “Over the past year, I’ve published reporting based on classified CIA assessments that I believe the public deserves to know about.” Chávez has not been charged and did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. A federal public defender representing Brinksman declined to comment, Reuters reported.
John Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for national security, accused Brinksman of reaching “far outside his own duties to obtain some of our Nation’s most closely held secrets” and handing them “to a romantic partner he knew intended to publish them.” Attorney General Todd Blanche said the allegations “reflect the behavior of a government contractor who exempted himself from a federal law governing the protection of classified information.”
The FBI’s Chicago Field Office is leading the investigation with help from the Washington Field Office, the department said.
Brinksman is scheduled to appear on Tuesday, Oct. 27, for a detention hearing and preliminary hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Fitzpatrick, according to the Alexandria court docket. The charges are allegations, and he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.