Federal prosecutors said on Thursday that James A Wolfe, 58, had been arrested and indicted on three counts of false statements. Wolfe and Watkins were in “a personal relationship” that began in 2013 when Watkins was a news service intern in Washington, DC, according to charging documents.
Wolfe was a longtime intelligence panel staffer and served as director of security for the committee, a position that gave him access to classified information.
Donald Trump has decried what he has called leaks in the White House and Congress. The seizure of Watkins’ communications records was the first such action against a reporter during the Trump administration, though the justice department used similar tactics during the Barack Obama presidency.
“Mr Wolfe’s alleged conduct is a betrayal of the extraordinary public trust that had been placed in him,” said Jessie K Liu, US attorney for the District of Columbia. “It is hoped that these charges will be a warning to those who might lie to law enforcement to the detriment of the United States.”
Wolfe was accused of using his personal cellphone, his congressional email account and the encrypted apps Signal and WhatsApp to communicate sensitive information to reporters.
Following the delivery by an unnamed executive branch agency of a classified document to the Senate committee on 17 March 2017, the government alleges, Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with Watkins “and that evening engaged in a 28-minute phone call” with her.
About two weeks later, Watkins, then working for Buzzfeed, published a bombshell article reporting that former Trump adviser Carter Page had met with a Russian spy in 2013.
Wolfe is expected to make his first court appearance on Friday. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer.
Watkins’s personal lawyer, Mark J. MacDougall, said in a statement obtained by the Washington Post: “It’s always disconcerting when a journalist’s telephone records are obtained by the Justice Department — through a grand jury subpoena or other legal process. Whether it was really necessary here will depend on the nature of the investigation and the scope of any charges.”
Prosecutors claim Wolfe lied to the FBI in December 2017 about contacts he had with three reporters, and also lied about giving two reporters non-public information about committee matters.
Ben Smith, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, said in a statement: “We’re deeply troubled by what looks like a case of law enforcement interfering with a reporter’s constitutional right to gather information about her own government.”
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