A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst pleaded guilty Friday in federal court in Virginia to charges that he leaked classified information assessing Israel’s earlier plans to attack Iran
Asif William Rahman, 34, of Vienna, Virginia, was arrested last year in Cambodia and later taken to Guam. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each of the two charges: retention and transmission of classified information related to the national defense.
Rahman, 34, of Vienna, had been an employee of the CIA since 2016 and had a top-secret security clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI).
The leaked documents were related to the Israeli plans to retaliate against Iran for its strikes against Israel in October 2024.
They revealed detailed plans documented by the United States regarding Israeli military measures including Air Force exercises, military drone operations, and the relocation of advanced munitions, as well as satellite imaging conducted by United States intelligence on the Israeli Air Force.
One of the documents seemed to confirm Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, something that Israel and the United States always declined to confirm publicly.
The leaks also revealed the United States’ significant contribution to spying on Iran and providing intelligence for Israel’s planned military operations.
Iran and Israel have been engaged in a covert conflict for years.
The Axis of Resistance is a coalition of Iranian-supported militias and political organizations committed to countering the influence of the United States and Israel across the Middle East. Among them are the Lebanese Hezbollah, Islamic Resistance in Iraq, the Popular Mobilization Forces, the former Syrian government, and the Yemeni Houthi movement.
It sometimes includes Hamas and a variety of other Palestinian militant groups.
“Mr. Rahman betrayed the trust of the American people by unlawfully sharing classified national defense information he swore an oath to protect,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Today’s guilty plea demonstrates that the Justice Department will spare no effort to swiftly find and aggressively prosecute those who harm the United States by illegally disclosing our national security secrets.”
Prosecutors said Rahman illegally downloaded and printed classified documents at work and then took the documents home, where he altered them to cover up the source of the information before distributing it.
The secret information was eventually published on the Telegram social media platform.
A Justice Department statement said that beginning in the spring of 2024 and lasting until November, Rahman shared the “top-secret information” he learned at his job with “multiple individuals he knew were not entitled to receive it.”
“Government employees who are granted security clearances and given access to our nation’s classified information must promise to protect it,” Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, said Friday in a statement.
“Rahman blatantly violated that pledge and took multiple steps to hide his actions. The FBI will use all our resources to investigate and hold accountable those who illegally transmit classified information and endanger the national security interests of our country,” Wells said.
The Justice Department said Rahman destroyed journal entries and written work products on his personal electronic devices “to conceal his personal opinions on U.S. policy and drafted entries to construct a false narrative regarding his activity.”
He also destroyed several other electronic devices, including an internet router that the Justice Department said Rahman “used to transmit classified information and photographs of classified documents, and discarded the destroyed devices in public trash receptacles in an effort to thwart potential investigations into him and his unlawful conduct.”
Rahman was born in California but grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from Yale University after only three years.
Rahman is scheduled to be sentenced on May 15.