Judge orders CIA analyst accused of Israel-Iran leak held pending trial
A CIA analyst charged with leaking top secret details ahead of a planned Israeli attack on Iran earlier this year will remain jailed pending trial, a judge ordered Wednesday.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles overrules a magistrate who said last week that Asif Rahman, 34, of Vienna, Virginia, could be free on restrictions while he awaits trial on charges of disclosing national defense information.
The fight over Rahman’s detention revealed additional details about the government’s investigation of the leak and the analyst who allegedly disclosed the classified documents in October on the Telegram messaging app.
At Wednesday’s detention hearing, prosecutor Troy Edwards said Rahman was motivated by ideology, though he did not discuss what that ideology might be.
Edwards highlighted eight pages of notes found on Rahman when he was arrested last month in Cambodia, where he worked at the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh. Those notes included two separate “to-do” lists, one of which was largely blocks of apparently encrypted text along with an unencrypted sentence pertaining to U.S. missile capabilities. Investigators have not yet been able to decipher the encryption.
A separate, unencrypted to-do list included categories labeled “contingencies” and “run,” Edwards said.
Official court documents are vague about what was leaked, but details discussed in open court indicate that it references an October disclosure of documents from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency noting that Israel was moving military assets into place to conduct a military strike on Iran after Iran launched its own missile attack on Israel on October 1.
Israel eventually carried out an attack on Iran’s air defense systems and missile manufacturing facilities in late October.
The government stated that the leak caused Israel to delay its attack plans. Edwards emphasized that the volatile nature of the Middle East makes the leak exceptionally dangerous, noting, “It is hard to overstate what other circumstances present graver risks of danger to human life than unilaterally deciding to transmit information related to plans for kinetic military action between two countries.”
Rahman’s attorney, Amy Jeffress, cited anonymous sources in news articles who have downplayed the leak’s significance. Jeffress explained that the to-do list included the word “run” because Rahman is an avid jogger and mentioned that it’s rare for defendants facing similar charges to be detained pending trial.
Rahman was born in California and moved with his family to Cincinnati as a child, where he was a high school valedictorian. He graduated from Yale University in three years and now lives in the D.C. metro area with his wife and parents.
His father, Muhit Rahman, who was prepared to serve as his son’s custodian pretrial if he had been released, attended Wednesday’s hearing along with numerous family members and friends for support.
Rahman made his initial court appearance last month in Guam. Following Wednesday’s hearing, Jeffress indicated her intention to appeal the detention order.
