Former intelligence analyst pleads guilty to disclosing classified information

A former intelligence analyst on Wednesday pleaded guilty to obtaining classified national defense documents and sharing them with a reporter, the Justice Department (DOJ) announced. 

Daniel Hale, 31, a former member of the Air Force and intelligence contractor, admitted to illegally sharing classified military information while working as an analyst at both the National Security Agency (NSA) and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), according to a DOJ press release. 

The documents, which gave detailed information about U.S. military drone strikes against al Qaeda and other targets, was later used as part of a series by The Intercept reporter Jeremy Scahill, according to The Associated Press. 

Court records in Hale’s case indicated that the intelligence analyst began communicating with the reporter in April 2013 when Hale was assigned to the NSA. 

The DOJ said that while at the NSA, Hale “met with the reporter in person on multiple occasions, and communicated with the reporter via phone, text message, email, and, at times, an encrypted messaging platform.” 

The communication with the reporter continued when Hale began working as a defense contractor at NGA in February 2014. During this time, the DOJ wrote that “Hale printed six classified documents unrelated to his work at NGA and soon after exchanged a series of messages with the reporter” and “Each of the six documents printed were later published by the reporter’s news outlet.” 

The DOJ in Wednesday’s press release noted that, in total, Hale printed 36 classified documents, 23 of which were unrelated to his work. At least 17 of the documents, 11 of which were marked as “Top Secret” or “Secret,” were shared with the reporter. 

In a statement along with Wednesday’s press release, Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the DOJ’s National Security Division said, “Hale has now admitted what the evidence at trial would have conclusively shown: that he took classified documents from his work at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), documents he had no right to retain, and that he sent them to a reporter, knowing all along that what he was doing was against the law.” 

“This conduct undermined the efforts of our Intelligence Community to keep us safe,” he continued, adding that “Hale’s plea is another step in the Department’s ongoing efforts to prosecute and deter leaks of classified information.”

Hale pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia to charges of violating the Espionage Act by illegally retaining and transmitting national defense information. 

The former analyst is scheduled to appear at a sentencing hearing in July and faces up to 10 years in prison. 

Hale’s lawyers last year unsuccessfully attempted to argue that the case should be tossed out, citing his First Amendment rights, and have since pushed back on the government’s use of the Espionage Act to target whistleblowers, claiming it has a chilling effect on free speech, the AP reported.