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Former CIA analyst pleads guilty to leaking Israeli retaliation plans

Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on January 17, 2025

(WASHINGTON) — A former CIA analyst arrested in November and charged with leaking highly classified records showing Israeli plans to launch a retaliatory strike on Iran pleaded guilty Friday in a federal court in Virginia.

Asif Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of transmission of national defense information, according to court records.

Rahman faces up to 10 years in prison for the first count and up to three years for the second count. His sentencing was set for May 15.

Rahman admitted to accessing and printing out two documents regarding Israel’s retaliatory strike plans on Oct. 17 and transporting them to his residence, where he later uploaded images of them and provided them to “multiple individuals he knew were not entitled to receive them,” according to the plea agreement.

He later took various steps to try and conceal his involvement in the leak, even as authorities were able to track him down remarkably quickly given he was the only individual found to have printed out the documents, according to logs reviewed by investigators.

Rahman was arrested in Cambodia and later brought to Guam, according to the charging documents.

Rahman, a U.S. citizen, worked as an employee for the CIA starting in 2016.

In the days after the disclosure, Rahman deleted “approximately 1.5 gigabytes” of data from his personal folder in the Top Secret system, including scores of highly classified materials he had downloaded over the years — largely relating to the Middle East, according to prosecutors.