Former NSA Employee Sentenced to 21 Years for Trying to Sell Classified Info to Russia via Fake Russian Agent

A former employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) has been sentenced to over 21 years in prison for attempting to sell classified information to Russia. Jareh Sebastian Dalke, a Colorado-based Army veteran who had briefly worked at the NSA and was reapplying to the agency when he tried to sell secrets, believed that he was dealing with a Russian agent but actually interacted with an FBI operative.
“This defendant, who pledged to defend our country, thought he was selling classified national security information to a Russian intelligence officer, only to find himself outmaneuvered and arrested by the FBI,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement on Monday. The sentence demonstrates that “those who seek to betray our nation will be held accountable for their actions”, he added.
Dalke began corresponding with an agent posing as Russian intelligence personnel in 2021, saying that his motivation was driven by curiosity and the desire to cause change. According to court documents, Dalke claimed that he had fallen into debt and told the supposed agent: “There is a chance for balance of scales around the world while also tending to my own needs.”
Dalke sent excerpts from some classified papers in his possession as an example of both legitimate access and willingness to share. The documents included sensitive US defense capabilities, threat assessments on another unnamed country, and information about a specific cryptographic program run by the United States government. In September 2021, Dalke met with what he believed was the Russian agent at Denver’s train station but instead found himself being arrested by FBI agents after transferring five classified documents through an encrypted connection on his laptop computer while inside the station.