onsdag 15. oktober 2025

State Dept Employee Allegedly Took Top Secret Docs, Met Chinese Officials

A State Department employee has been accused of removing classified documents from government facilities and covertly meeting with Chinese officials for several years, according to federal prosecutors.

Ashley Joachim Tellis, an unpaid State Department senior adviser, is facing a felony charge of unlawful retention of national defense information after investigators found more than 1,000 pages of top secret or secret documents at his home Saturday in Vienna, Virginia.

Tellis, a State Department employee since 2001 who also worked as a contractor for the Office of Net Assessment within the Department of Defense, had a coworker print multiple classified documents for him during a visit to a DOD facility in Virginia on September 12, court documents allege.