DOD employee tried to leak classified information, prosecutors say
'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,' Laatsch wrote in one message, according to an FBI 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.'
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U.S. officials were tipped off to Laatsch's outreach in March, and an FBI agent posing as a foreign official communicated with Laatsch over several weeks, arranging for him to drop off classified materials in a park in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington, according to court records.
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Sue J. Bai, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, called Laatsch's alleged offense 'a profound betrayal of the American people and a direct threat to our national security.'
'When someone entrusted with access to classified information attempts to provide it to a foreign government, it jeopardizes our intelligence capabilities, our military advantage and the safety of our nation,' Bai said in a statement Friday.
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Dressed in a gray T-shirt and dark blue sweatpants, Laatsch made a brief initial appearance Friday afternoon in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg said that the alleged offense is punishable by a maximum sentence of death or life in prison but that the Justice Department had not yet determined whether Laatsch met the criteria for the death penalty.
Whitney Minter, a public defender for Laatsch, said he had no criminal record and indicated he would be seeking bail pending trial. A federal magistrate scheduled a hearing for Wednesday on whether to grant pretrial release. In the meantime, Laatsch is being held in jail.
Laatsch, of Alexandria, joined the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2019 and had a top-secret security clearance. He worked with the agency's Insider Threat Division, helping officials monitor the computer activities of people under investigation, according to court records. He graduated in 2018 from Florida Polytechnic University with a degree in cybersecurity.
Surveillance video of Laatsch's workstation at a Defense Intelligence Agency facility in the Washington area showed how the IT specialist accessed classified information on his screen, transcribed it onto a notepad, then placed the handwritten pages in his socks or lunchbox before leaving work for the day, according to the FBI affidavit.
Prosecutors said that on May 1, after weeks of discussions, Laatsch dropped off a thumb drive at an Arlington County park with nine typed documents replicating the classified records he had accessed. The FBI retrieved the drive, and the agencies where those records originated said that eight of them were designated top secret, one of which 'reflected sensitive methods of intelligence collection, intelligence related to foreign military exercises, and analysis of the impact of those military exercises.'
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When the undercover FBI agent asked what Laatsch wanted in exchange, he replied that he was seeking 'citizenship for your country,' the affidavit says. He did not rule out getting paid for the classified materials, prosecutors said. 'Although he said he was 'not opposed to other compensation,' he was not in a position where he needed to seek 'material compensation,'' according to a court filing.
'I've given a lot of thought to this before any outreach, and despite the risks, the calculus has not changed,' Laatsch wrote in a mid-April message quoted in the charging documents. '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.'
A second document drop was planned for Thursday, when Laatsch was arrested, court records state.
'It will not be easy for them, for example, to open a case on me without my knowledge since my permissions to see that would need to be changed and I'd notice,' he told the undercover FBI agent in one message quoted in the charging documents, boasting that he knew how to avoid the 'stupid mistakes' that had bedeviled other U.S. employees under investigation.
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