JUST IN: Nat’l Security Official with Over 1,000 Classified Docs Charged Under ESPIONAGE ACT

A foreign-born naturalized US citizen generally held in high esteem as a subject-matter expert and senior Advisor at the State Department has been arrested and charged under the Espionage Act.

Ashley Tellis holds high-level security clearances to support his roles with both the State Department and as a Defense Contractor.

He sat on the National Security Counsel beginning all the way back in 2001 for the George W. Bush White House.

As such, he helped shape US foreign police for more than 20 years, including during the entirety of the Global War on Terror.

On Saturday, after years of surveillance, FBI Agents raided his home and discovered thousands of highly classified ‘TOP SECRET’ documents which he is now accused of stealing and illegally storing.

Constitutional lawyer Mike Davis shared the breaking Fox News story on X, and applauded President Trump’s US Attorney in Virginia who brought the charges for what may turn out to be a very big deal:

Trump U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan is already firing on all cylinders.

Over the last several weeks, she charged two leading Lawfare Democrats.

This week, she charged a Chinese spy.

And she’s just getting started. https://t.co/Afsd3yf33N

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) October 14, 2025

Tellis also has a history of sketchy meetings with Chinese officials that have included suspected exchanges of ‘gifts’ — the true nature of which is either not fully known, or has simply not been disclosed publicly.

Several meetings between Tellis and multiple unnamed Chinese officials have been highlighted in court documents and reported by Fox News:

A State Department employee is accused of removing classified documents from secure locations and meeting with Chinese officials dating back to 2023.

The Justice Department said Ashley Tellis was an unpaid senior adviser to the State Department and also a contractor with the Office of Net Assessment at the Department of Defense, recently renamed the Department of War. He is considered a subject-matter expert on India and South Asian affairs in his role at the Office of Net Assessment.

He held a top-secret clearance and had access to sensitive information, federal prosecutors said in court documents. He was also employed as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In September 2022, he met with Chinese officials at a Virginia restaurant while holding a manila envelope, prosecutors said.

During a meeting on April 11, 2023, Tellis and Chinese officials were heard talking about Iranian-Chinese relations and emerging technologies while dining at a restaurant, authorities said.

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He received a gift bag at a Sept. 2 dinner meeting with Chinese officials as well, court documents state.

Technically, Tellis has NOT been charged with Espionage.

At least, not yet.

He has rather been charged with illegally possessing classified national defense information — which is charged under the Espionage Act.

So at least for now he is not being accused of SHARING any of that super classified national defense information with all those Chinese officials he likes to meet up with for lunch.

Check this out — notice the photo on this post.  That photo is from an event held in 2007:

Ashley J. Tellis, an Indian-born senior fellow and Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. as well as a former staffer on the White House National Security Council under President George W. Bush, has been arrested on… pic.twitter.com/YVUNXhvsq2

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) October 15, 2025

I did a little digging to find out that was at a Heritage Foundation event, and Tellis was speaking since he’s a SENIOR ASSOCIATE at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

This guy has been seriously involved in shaping not only US/Indian relations…

But US policy and relations between essentially every Asian nation, including the near eastern nation of Iran.

Including… China?  Yep.

And though the meetings with the Chinese go back several years — that we know of — he only recently started printing and hoarding massive amounts of classified documents, according to the Associated Press:

He was ordered detained Tuesday pending a detention hearing next week. One of his lawyers, Deborah Curtis, told The Associated Press that “we look forward to the hearing, where we’ll be able to present evidence” but declined to comment further.

An FBI affidavit cites several instances over the last month in which Tellis is alleged to have printed on government computers, or asked a colleague to print, classified documents on topics including U.S. military aircraft capabilities. Surveillance video shows him on several occasions exiting the State Department and a Defense Department facility with a briefcase in which he was believed to have stashed the printed-out papers, according to court documents.

Tellis also met multiple times with Chinese government officials in recent years, according to the affidavit. Tellis arrived to one 2022 dinner with a manila folder while the Chinese officials he was meeting with entered with a gift bag, the FBI says. The affidavit says Tellis did not appear to have the manila folder in his possession when he left the restaurant, but does not accuse him of providing any classified information during his meetings with the Chinese.

As I like to do, I found a great synopsis of the situation in video report format for those who prefer a visual rundown.

Here’s that story from Australia’s Channel 10 News:

As noted in that report, he ONLY faces a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison under the current charges.

Those don’t include the more substantial sentence that could be levied against him if the charges happen to expand to include passing state secrets to foreign agents.

We’ll stay on top of the story to see if that develops.

Oddly enough, Tellis was apparently on his way to the airport with tickets to Rome when the FBI decided to execute a warrant, raid his home, and put a stop to his impending foreign travel… as covered in this report from the Washington Post:

Ashley J. Tellis, who had served on the National Security Council during President George W. Bush’s administration and as a senior adviser to the U.S. ambassador in India, was arrested Saturday after the FBI raided his home in Vienna, Virginia, finding hundreds of pages with classification markings in the basement, according to court records.

Tellis was charged with unlawful retention of national defense information, for which the maximum sentence is 10 years in prison.

A naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India, Tellis had a top-secret security clearance through his dual roles as an unpaid senior counselor to the State Department and contractor with the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment, a think tank within the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this year that the office was being abolished.

According to an FBI affidavit, U.S. officials had been investigating Tellis for years. He was spotted having dinner with Chinese officials in Northern Virginia on at least four occasions from 2022 to last month, and was overheard discussing Iranian-Chinese relations, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, an FBI agent said in the court filing.

In the charging documents filed in U.S. District Court, officials said Tellis had printed hundreds of pages of classified records at Defense and State facilities in the Washington region since last month, including more than 350 pages from a document that bore markings showing that it was classified at the “secret” level and contained risk-sensitive information from a foreign government that had been obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

That document’s title indicated that it dealt with “U.S. Air Force tactics techniques and procedures,” according to the FBI affidavit. A separate, 40-page document marked “secret” that Tellis allegedly printed the same day, Sept. 25, concerned “military aircraft capabilities,” the court filing says.

Tellis was scheduled to depart for Rome with his family Saturday when the FBI executed its search warrant and arrested him, according to court records. He had booked return travel to the United States, the FBI said. (Emphasis added.)

As noted in that story, Tellis works as an UNPAID advisor to the State Department.

I’m not exactly sure how THAT works…

But I know his OTHER job working as a Contractor for the Pentagon is generally highly lucrative.

If you noticed the section I highlighted in bold in that previous quote from the Washington Post, the soon ELIMINATION of Tellis’ paid position might prove to be an important tidbit of information to hold on to as this story plays out.

The shared timing of that department’s elimination with his sudden penchant for printing and pigeonholing state secrets doesn’t prove anything.

But I’ve learned that coincidences like that tend to suggest a more solid link than just mere happenstance.

Something else to keep our eyes on as the case plays out and more information becomes available.

I don’t want to lose sight of the very American concept of “innocent until proven guilty”.

For all I know… Mr. Tellis is being set up to make it APPEAR as though he’s been involved in some sketchy geopolitical information sharing.

Those things do happen.

And if that’s the case, we’ll bring you that story and cover it as accurately as possible.

For now, Ashley Tellis’ next hearing will happen some time next week.

I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for more information to share with you until then.