US accuses gov't contractor of leaking national defense info to girlfriend's Substack

The US Justice Department accused a government contractor on Friday of leaking national defense information to his girlfriend, the publisher of a Substack newsletter.

The FBI arrested Ian Brinksman, 42, on Friday following a search of his Washington home, a Justice Department statement said. Prosecutors charged him with unlawfully transmitting national defense information.

A federal public defender representing Brinksman declined to comment.

“As alleged, Brinksman reached far outside his own duties to obtain some of our Nation’s most closely held secrets and handed them to a romantic partner he knew intended to publish them,” John Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security, said in the statement.

“That is not carelessness. It is a betrayal of his oath and the American people who entrusted him to fulfill his duties honorably,” Eisenberg said.

Brinksman held a top secret security clearance while working as an employee of a US government agency and later as a developer for systems integration for a private contractor working for the same agency, prosecutors said.

According to the sworn affidavit of an FBI agent investigating the case, Brinksman repeatedly accessed classified intelligence reports and then communicated with the journalist. The affidavit also cites phone records, database access logs, badge-swipe records, emails and other evidence.

The affidavit only identifies the journalist as "Individual 1," but it cites excerpts from articles she published.

"A fundraising article reportedly published by Individual 1 in September 2026 stated 'over the past year (Individual 1 has) published reporting based on classified (relevant U.S. government agency) assessments that I believe the public deserves to know about,'" the affidavit reads.

That quote appears in a September 28 piece published on the Capital & Empire online newsletter authored by Aída Chávez.

"Over the past year, I’ve published reporting based on classified CIA assessments that I believe the public deserves to know about," wrote Chávez, whose profile on the site notes that she worked for the Nation and other outlets before she launched the newsletter.

Chávez did not respond to an email message seeking comment.

Investigators allege that on at least five occasions in 2026, Individual 1 published Substack articles containing information that mirrored the classified reports, some at the top secret level. On some of those dates, Chávez published articles that cite classified reports, some of them attributed to the CIA.

According to a LinkedIn profile bearing Brinksman's name, he worked for Deloitte as a manager and as a senior strategy security consultant after having worked as a US State Department foreign service officer on dates corresponding to those outlined in the Justice Department statement.

The State Department declined to comment. Deloitte did not respond to requests for comment.

Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Tom Hogue, Sergio Non, Rod Nickel/Reuters