James Thomas Ashbacher, 37, of Spring Lake, North Carolina, a former U.S. government contractor, was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday for allegedly leaking national defense information by posting the information on a popular social media site, unlawfully retaining other national defense information at his residence, and stealing night vision goggles from the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command.
Ashbacher was charged by an indictment unsealed Tuesday with unlawfully transmitting and retaining national defense information and with theft of government property.
According to the indictment, beginning in or about 2021, the defendant worked as an employee of a private company that provided security and emergency management services at the U.S. Army Special Operations Command facility in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. To perform the required functions of his employment, Ashbacher held a Top Secret security clearance with Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) access.
As further detailed in the indictment, Ashbacher photographed and removed without authorization videos and photographs containing images of classified military operations and transmitted the materials to a social media site. The classified materials were later re-posted by other users to a second social media site. Ashbacher asked a social media user in a private message to remove some materials and further stated that he was “trying to do some damage control.” A search of Ashbacher’s residence also revealed a classified award write-up that contained additional national defense information, along with a night vision goggle system specific to a military unit within Army Special Operations Command that had been reported missing.
The FBI Charlotte Field Office is investigating the case with substantial assistance from the U.S. Department of the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division.
Trial Attorney Leslie Esbrook of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Logan Liles for the Eastern District of North Carolina are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.