Latest news with #nationaldefense
Fox News
11 hours ago
- General
- Fox News
Government employee held after attempt to share classified information with foreign country
A government employee in Virginia accused of attempting to share classified information with a foreign country was held pending a detention hearing, and could face up to life in prison, or even death, depending on the details of the case brought against him, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Virginia-based Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ordered that 28-year-old Nathan Laatsch be held pending a detention hearing scheduled for June 4. Laatsch allegedly attempted to transmit classified national defense information or documents to a foreign government. Depending on the details of the case, Laatsch faces "any term or years, or life…or even death," according to DOJ prosecutor Gordon Kromberg. Laatsch, an IT specialist employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) since 2019, appeared in court on Friday wearing street clothes, which were presumably the same clothes he wore when he was arrested the day before. He was arrested after the FBI received a tip in March that someone was willing to provide classified information to a friendly foreign government. Laatsch was a civilian employee in the DIA's Insider Threat Division and held a top-secret security clearance, according to the DOJ. An email to the FBI said that the person — later identified as Laatsch — didn't "agree or align with the values" of the Trump administration and would be willing to share classified information that he could access, including "completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation." Laatsch communicated with an FBI agent, whom he believed to be a foreign government official, multiple times and would confirm that he was ready to share classified information that he transcribed onto a notepad at his desk, the DOJ said. He allegedly exfiltrated the information from his workspace multiple times over a three-day period in preparation. The FBI set up an operation at a northern Virginia park where Laatsch was to deposit classified information "for the foreign government to retrieve," according to the DOJ. He was observed by the FBI on or around May 1 depositing an item at the specified location. Once he left, the DOJ said FBI agents retrieved a thumb drive from the area found to contain a message from Laatsch and multiple typed documents with information portion-marked for Secret or Top-Secret levels. His message allegedly indicated that he was sharing "a decent sample size" of classified information to demonstrate the types of things he has access to. On May 7, after Laatsch learned that the thumb drive had been retrieved, he allegedly sent a message to the undercover agent appearing to say that he was seeking something in exchange for providing the information. The following day, he specified that he was interested in "citizenship for your country" because he didn't expect things in America "to improve in the long term," the DOJ said. He also allegedly said he was "not opposed to other compensation," but not in a place where he needed "material compensation." Laatsch was told on May 14 by the FBI agent that the "foreign government" was ready for additional classified information. Between May 15 and May 27, he transcribed more information and began to remove it from the building by folding the notes and hiding them in his clothing. On Thursday, Laatsch arrived at a prearranged location in northern Virginia to drop the information off to the "foreign country." He was arrested once the FBI received the documents.
Daily Mail
17 hours ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Traitorous intelligence worker 'offered to leaked secrets to foreign government because he hated Trump'
A government intelligence worker has been charged with leaking classified data to a foreign power in exchange for citizenship. Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 28, allegedly betrayed his country due to frustration with Donald Trump 's policies that he found 'extremely disturbing'. A civilian employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he had top secret clearance and access to several highly classified Special Access Programs. Laatsch was arrested on Thursday as he allegedly made a dead drop of a USB drive filled with classified documents after a months-long FBI sting operation. He was charged with attempting to transmit national defense information to an officer or agent of a foreign government and will appear in court on Friday. Laatsch joined the DIA in August 2019, soon after graduating from Florida Polytechnic University with a Bachelor of Science in cyber security in 2018. By the beginning of this year he was a data scientist and IT specialist of information security at the agency's Insider Threat Division. He allegedly emailed an agent of a friendly country on March 2 from burner a account created the same day, with the subject line 'Outreach from USA Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Officer'. 'I am an officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) serving in a technical role in support of our internal Officer of Security (SEC),' he wrote. 'The recent actions of the current administration are extremely disturbing to me '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. '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.' The email explained he had 'intimate knowledge of how DIA tracks and monitors user activity' and all further communication had to be on an encrypted messaging app. Laatsch allegedly provided photos of his security badges with personal information removed - but left enough exposed that the FBI was able to identify him. His fatal mistake was to send a test email from another account that allegedly included his full name, phone number, and date of birth, and the IP address led back to his home. Instead of taking him up on his offer, the unnamed friendly government tipped of US authorities and the FBI began a sting operation, starting on March 23 'Good afternoon, I received your message and share your concerns. We are glad you reached out. I look forward to your response and learning more about your work,' investigators wrote on an encrypted app. The leaker didn't reply so they sent him an email on April 4. He replied on April 14 saying he didn't check the email much as there was no reply to his initial one for a while, but he was still interested. 'What I originally wrote remains true. Arguably more so now,' Laatsch wrote. Conversations moved to an encrypted app on April 17 with Laatsch allegedly still believing he was talking to the foreign government. He allegedly said he had 'access to a significant amount of information and finished products' but would need to 'copy things manually', which would 'somewhat limit' what he could provide. 'I've given a lot of thought to this before any outreach, and despite the risks, the calculus has not changed,' he explained. '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.' Laatsch allegedly planned to copy out the classified data by hand and digitize it on his home computer. The FBI asked him for a sample of the intelligence on April 27 so they could authenticate it. DIA cameras allegedly filmed him writing on a notepad while having classified material open on his computer. He then allegedly smuggled the folded pages out of the office in his socks and lunchbox over the course of three days. Laatsch allegedly told them he had extracted classified data and they set up a dead drop at a park in Arlington, Virginia. The drop was done on May 1 and agents watched him leave a USB drive with a note explaining his methods, and nine documents. 'I have to the best of my ability attempted to copy the products by hand, but I cannot guarantee that every single word is completely correct,' the note read. 'If there are any mistakes, they would only be a basic word or two, and nothing that would alter the content or meaning of the product. 'As anticipated, the process of manually copying by hand will be time-intensive. Many of the provided products took around 40-60 minutes to fully complete, and often two full pages of notebook paper per-product.' Prosecutors said the documents were all top secret and one included 'sensitive methods of intelligence collection, intelligence related to foreign military exercises, and analysis of the impact of those military exercises'. Laatsch on May 7 allegedly asked for citizenship of the friendly country in exchange for future classified information. 'With my own credibility now hopefully established, I would like to outline something pertaining to the longer term of this arrangement,' he allegedly wrote. 'I'm [sic] not mentioned compensation throughout this, as that is not my motivation for doing this... There is though something I am interested in, but can be discussed at the appropriate time.' Laatsch allegedly wrote that he was interested in 'citizenship for your country' because he did not 'expect things here to improve in the long term, even in the event there is a change in the future'. This state affairs meant he he wanted 'to pursue an alternative, despite the clear challenges that would come with it'. Although he said he was 'not opposed to other compensation', he was not in a position where he needed to seek 'material compensation'. Laatsch allegedly explained how it would be difficult for him to because as his role would give him early warning of an investigation. '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 wrote. He laid out the 'stupid mistakes' others made when cases were opened on them and said these mistakes 'should not be too difficult for me to avoid'. Little did he know that the investigation was launched months ago, and as it was conducted by the FBI he didn't see it coming. Laatsch allegedly said he would be ready to provide more intel on May 26, and on May 15 to 27 he copied more data and hid it in his socks to extract it. He was arrested at the second dead drop on Thursday at the same park in Arlington, near his home in Alexandria, Virginia.
Arab News
4 days ago
- Business
- Arab News
German army must use new funds responsibly, auditors say
In March, Germany's parliament approved plans for a massive spending surge Key recommendations include a thorough review of tasks, prioritization of defense-critical dutiesBERLIN: The German army must undergo significant organizational and personnel reforms to effectively utilize increased defense spending, the country's federal audit institute said on Tuesday in a special March, Germany's parliament approved plans for a massive spending surge, largely removing defense investment from the rules that cap Bundesrechnungshof report highlights that despite relaxed debt rules, the Bundeswehr must prioritize its core mission of national and alliance defense while reducing administrative processes.''Whatever it takes' must not become 'money doesn't matter!'' said Kay Scheller, president of the institute, emphasising the need for responsible financial management and increased efficiency in defense recommendations include a thorough review of tasks, prioritization of defense-critical duties, and restructuring the Bundeswehr to focus on 'more troops, less administration.'The Bundesrechnungshof recommends careful justification of financial needs, conducting efficiency analyzes, as well as maintaining a balance between time, cost and quality.'It is crucial that these funds are used responsibly to significantly increase the effectiveness of defense spending,' Scheller said.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's foreign policy is not so unusual for the US – he just drops the facade of moral leadership
JD Vance is an Iraq war veteran and the US vice-president. On Friday, he declared the doctrine that underpinned Washington's approach to international relations for a generation is now dead. 'We had a long experiment in our foreign policy that traded national defence and the maintenance of our alliances for nation building and meddling in foreign countries' affairs, even when those foreign countries had very little to do with core American interests,' Vance told Naval Academy graduates in Annapolis, Maryland. His boss Donald Trump's recent trip to the Middle East signified an end to all that, Vance said: 'What we're seeing from President Trump is a generational shift in policy with profound implications for the job that each and every one of you will be asked to do.' US foreign policy has previously zigged and zagged from isolation to imperialism. Woodrow Wilson entered the first world war with the the goal of 'making the world safe for democracy'. Washington retreated from the world again during the 1920s and 1930s only to fight the second world war and emerge as a military and economic superpower. Foreign policy during the cold war centered on countering the Soviet Union through alliances, military interventions and proxy wars. The 11 September 2001 attacks shifted focus to counterterrorism, leading to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under George W Bush with justifications that included spreading democracy. Barack Obama emphasized diplomacy and reducing troop commitments, though drone strikes and counterterrorism operations persisted. Trump's first term pushed economic nationalism, pressuring allies to pay their way. Joe Biden restored multilateralism, focusing on climate, alliances and countering China's influence. As in many other political arenas, Trump's second term is bolder and louder on the world stage. Trump and Vance have sought to portray the 'America first' policy as a clean break from the recent past. Human rights, democracy, foreign aid and military intervention are out. Economic deals, regional stability and pragmatic self-interest are in. But former government officials interviewed by the Guardian paint a more nuanced picture, suggesting that Trump's quid pro quo approach has more in common with his predecessors than it first appears. Where he does differ, they argue, is in his shameless abandonment of moral leadership and use of the US presidency for personal gain. On a recent four-day swing through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Trump was feted by autocratic rulers with a trio of lavish state visits where there was heavy emphasis on economic and security partnerships. Saudi Arabia pledged $600bn in investments in the US across industries such as energy, defence, technology and infrastructure, although how much of that will actually be new investment – or come to fruition – remains to be seen. A $142bn defence cooperation agreement was described by the White House as the biggest in US history. Qatar and the US inked agreements worth $1.2tn, including a $96bn purchase of Boeing jets. The UAE secured more than $200bn in commercial agreements and a deal to establish the biggest artificial intelligence campus outside the US. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic magazine, said Trump had shown 'the outlines of America's newest foreign policy doctrine: extreme transactionalism'. He had prioritized quick deals over long-term stability, ideological principles or established alliances. But, Goldberg noted, the president had also advanced the cause of his family's businesses. The president said he will accept a $400m luxury plane from Qatar and use it as Air Force One. Abu Dhabi is using a Trump family-aligned stablecoin for a $2bn investment in the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. And the Trump Organization, run by the president's two oldest sons, is developing major property projects including a high-rise tower in Jeddah, a luxury hotel in Dubai, and a golf course and villa complex in Qatar. Analysts say no US president has received overseas gifts on such a scale. Aaron David Miller, who served for two decades as a state department analyst, negotiator and adviser on Middle East issues for both Democratic and Republican administrations, said: 'He gives transactionalism a bad name. 'The level of self-dealing in this administration means the notion that the national interest is now seamlessly blended with Donald Trump's personal interests and financial interests. The concept of an American national interest that transcends party politics and partisanship has gone the way of the dodo.' Ned Price, a former US state department spokesperson during the Biden administration, said: 'I actually think calling this 'transactional' is far too charitable, because so much of this is predicated not on the national interest but on the president's own personal interest, including his economic interests and the economic interests of his family and those around him.' Presidential trips to the Middle East usually feature at least some public calls for authoritarian governments to improve their human rights efforts. But not from Trump as he toured the marble and gilded palaces of Gulf rulers and deemed them 'perfecto' and 'very hard to buy' while barely mentioning the war in Gaza. In his remarks at a VIP business conference in Riyadh, the president went out of his way to distance himself from the actions of past administrations, the days when he said US officials would fly in 'in beautiful planes, giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs'. Trump said: 'The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons or liberal non-profits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here.' Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion But Price challenges the notion that Trump's aversion to interventionism represents revolution rather than evolution. 'It is fair to say that presidents have successively been moving in that direction,' he said. 'The sort of military adventurism that characterised the George W Bush presidency is not something that President Obama had an appetite for. It's not something that President Biden had an appetite for. President Obama's version of 'Don't do stupid shit' has echoes of what President Trump said. Of course, as he often does, President Trump took it one step further.' Price added: 'Most people who worked under President Biden or President Obama would tell you it doesn't have to be either/or: you don't have to be a nation builder or an isolationist. You can engage on the basis of interest and values at the same time and it's about calibrating the mix rather than declaring the age of nation building is entirely over and from now on we're not going to lecture, we're just going to come in and be feted with your goods.' In his address in Riyadh, Trump made no reference to the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul which, the CIA found, had been sanctioned by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The president's willingness to turn a blind eye to human rights violations was condemned by Democrats. Ro Khanna, who serves on the House of Representatives' armed services committee, said: 'I was opposed to the Iraq war and I'm opposed to this idea that we can just go in and build nations. But I'm not opposed to the idea of human rights and international law. 'To see an American president basically embrace cultural relativism was a rejection of any notion that American values about freedom and rule of law are not just our cultural constructs but are universal values.' Khanna added: 'The past century of development in global governance structures has pointed us towards human rights and dignity. He wants to go back to a a world where we just have nation-states and that was the world that had wars and colonialism and conflict.' Trump is hardly the first president to court oil-rich nations in the Middle East and tread lightly on human rights issues. Nor is he the first to be accused of putting interests before values. The public was deceived to justify wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Democratically elected leaders have been ousted and brutal dictators propped up when it suited US policy goals. John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, said: 'Different presidencies say they have different priorities but I would be willing to go down the list and all of their record is mixed and somewhat hypocritical in terms of exactly what they do on the values side of things. Just take Biden as the most recent example. He started off by calling Saudi Arabia a pariah but by the end of it he was going to visit the crown prince as well.' In that sense, Trump's lack of pretension to an ethical foreign policy might strike some as refreshingly honest. His supporters have long praised him for 'telling it like it is' and refusing to indulge the moral platitudes of career politicians. Miller, the former state department official who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thinktank in Washington, said: 'He's made explicit what is implicit in Republican and Democratic administrations. I'm not saying presidents don't care about values; Joe Biden cared a lot about American values. But the reality is, when it comes time to make choices, where or what do we choose?' Miller added: 'No administration I ever worked for made human rights or the promotion of democracy the centerpiece of our foreign policy. There are any number of reasons for that. But Donald Trump, it seems to me, is not even pretending there are values. He's emptied the ethical and moral frame of American foreign policy.' Trump's lifelong aversion to war is seen by many as a positive, including by some on the left. But it comes with an apparent desire to achieve significant and flashy diplomatic breakthroughs that might win him the Nobel peace prize. The president also displays an obvious comfort and preference for dealing with strongmen who flatter him, often siding with Russia's Vladimir Putin against Ukraine. Miller commented: 'Trump has no clear conception of the national interest. It's subordinated to his grievances, his pet projects – tariffs – his political interests, his vanity, his financial interests. I worked for half a dozen secretaries of state of both political parties. That he is so far out of the norm with respect to foreign policy frankly is less of a concern to me than what's happening here at home.'
Fox News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
German defense minister says military draft could return if volunteer numbers fall short
Germany may reinstate compulsory military service if a revamped volunteer system fails to meet recruitment goals, the defense minister said in comments published Saturday. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Boris Pistorius laid out a timeline for Germany's new military service model, which aims to bolster the understrength army. The initial program will rely on voluntary enlistment, but Pistorius warned that could change. "If the time comes when we have more capacity available than voluntary registrations, then a decision may be made to make recruitment mandatory. That is the roadmap," he said. He said the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz is moving quickly on a new military service bill and hopes it will come into force as early as January 2026. The debate over reinstating conscription in Germany has been intensifying as concerns rise about national defense readiness and evolving security threats in Europe. Germany suspended its draft in 2011, but has struggled to meet troop targets as defense demands grow following Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Pistorius also said the military service plan would include efforts to reactivate more reservists.
