A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency worker was arrested on Wednesday on federal charges of leaking top-secret information to two reporters that work for NBC Universal, one of whom he was allegedly involved in a romantic relationship with.
Henry Kyle Frese “has been charged with two counts of willful transmission of national defense information, a felony charge that carries the possibility of a lengthy prison term,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “The journalists aren’t named in the indictment, but they are identifiable as Amanda Macias, a reporter for CNBC, and Courtney Kube, a reporter for NBC. Public tweets cited in the court filings correspond to tweets sent by Ms. Macias and Ms. Kube in July.”
Journalist Matthew Keys reported that NBC suspended Macias as part of a “procedural” process, writing: “Source at NBC News with knowledge of matter says [Amanda Macias] has been suspended following arrest of former love interest and purported source Henry Frese, a defense intelligence analyst accused of leaking to her. Suspension ‘procedural,’ not disciplinary. The source who told me this works for NBC News but didn’t want to be identified otherwise because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Worth noting [Amanda Macias] is a CNBC journalist. CNBC and NBC News are affiliate orgs but have separate employees.”
According to the indictment, “Search warrant returns from Twitter show that, seven days after FRESE accessed Intelligence Report 1 for the second time, Journalist 1 wrote a Twitter Direct Message (‘DM’) to FRESE in which she asked whether FRESE would be willing to speak with Journalist 2. FRESE stated that he was ‘down’ to help Journalist 2 if it helped Journalist 1 because he wanted to see Journalist 1 ‘progress.’” – READ MORE