A former IT specialist with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) pleaded guilty to transmission of national defense information. Nathan Vilas Laatsch, a 29-year-old from Alexandria, VA, worked for the DIA since 2019 in the Insider Threats Division. Laatsch made himself a threat when he transcribed classified information, transferred it to a thumb drive, and began correspondence with a foreign contact who, in exchange for the information, was going to procure citizenship for him in that foreign country. According to court documents, Laatsch said he was “not opposed to other compensation.”

Instead of a foreign agent, Laatsch was communicating with the FBI. Once Laatsch attempted a second download of intel, the FBI arrested him in May of 2025.

“By his own admission, Laatsch betrayed his oath by offering classified information to a foreign government, the very thing he was supposed to prevent as an employee of DIA’s Insider Threat Division,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division. “Those entrusted with our nation’s most sensitive information must not exploit their access for personal gain - in this case offering to sell American secrets to buy foreign citizenship. The FBI and our partners will continue to hold accountable all those who betray the trust of the American people.”

Of course, he hails from Northern Virginia, a hotbed of disgruntled government employees suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

“Political disagreement is not a justification for jeopardizing the security of the United States and the lives of those who protect it,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos for the Eastern District of Virginia. “No one is entitled to break the law or violate the public trust, no matter their motivations, and this office will aggressively prosecute those who recklessly and illegally compromise national security.” [...]

“Laatsch’s animus toward the U.S. government gave him no license to betray the oath he took to the Constitution of the United States nor the duty he had to the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our Nation,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “Unlawfully disclosing national defense information to a foreign government is a serious crime, not a form of principled dissent.”

BREAKING: A former Defense Intelligence Agency insider-threat specialist pleaded guilty to sneaking Top Secret documents out of his office and leaving them on a thumb drive in a Virginia park for what he thought was a foreign government. 

Nathan Laatsch, 29, said he wanted citizenship in that country and later handed more classified files to an undercover FBI agent before his arrest. 

He faces up to life in prison when sentenced in January.

Because Laatsch pleaded guilty, he is saving the taxpayers money by avoiding a trial. He is expected to be sentenced on January 27, 2027, and faces life in prison.