BURSTThe leak of classified documents about preparations for an attack on Iran forced Israel to delay military action at a time of sky-high tensions in the Middle East, a federal prosecutor said as he sought to convince a judge to jail a CIA employee accused of violating the Espionage Act.
Instead, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis placed Asif William Rahman on home detention and GPS monitoring at his father’s house before trial, in a case that grew even more mysterious after a Friday hearing.
Rahman, 34, is accused of the October leak of secret analyses of Israel’s preparations for a strike on Iran. Those analyses, which were based on satellite photos, included details of the missiles and planes that could be used in an attack.
The disclosures embarrassed U.S. officials who were caught spying on a purported ally and launched a leak hunt that ultimately landed on Rahman, who was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia on November 12. He had been posted to the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, legal filings show.
While prosecutors made no claims Rahman was working with a foreign government, they sought on Friday to keep him detained as a flight risk as he faces two counts of leaking documents. Instead, Davis allowed Rahman to go free while acknowledging that the government had what a prosecutor called “damning evidence.” The government said it would appeal that decision.
Neither prosecutors nor Rahman’s attorneys spoke to what may have motivated Rahman, a Cincinnati native and Yale University graduate who has served in the CIA since 2016. A trail of online records uncovered by The Intercept suggest that he was interested in social justice causes from a young age.
Delayed Strike
The most intriguing information revealed at Friday’s hearing may have been a federal prosecutor’s claim that when the documents surfaced on a pro-Iranian Telegram channel, they forced Israel to hold off on attacking Iran for an unspecified period of time.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Edwards claimed that the leak forced Israel, although he did not identify it by name, to delay “kinetic action.”
The leaks first surfaced on social media on October 17, at a time when Israel was widely suspected of preparing to attack Iran in what U.S. officials dubbed a “tit-for-tat” sequence of strikes. Israel went ahead with the strikes October 26.
By that time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was well into an investigation into the leaker’s identity.
The government contends that Rahman was trying to stay one step ahead of them. Three days after the leak, Edwards said in court, Rahman deleted 1.5 gigabytes of classified CIA data. It was information that he once had official access to, but that authorization expired four years ago. Rahman also “fortified” his mobile devices and computer, Edwards said.
The government says those efforts failed to throw agents off Rahman’s tracks. Prosecutors said that government data logs “revealed that only one user in the entire United States government accessed both Document 1 and Document 2 in the same format they appeared online between the time the documents were published on classified networks and the time the documents were posted on social media and also printed both of those documents: the defendant, Asif William Rahman.”
Arrest in Cambodia
Rahman’s arrest in Phnom Penh was first reported by the New York Times, which said that he was posted overseas while working for the CIA.
Edwards said that Rahman had what the prosecutor described as “pocket litter” when he was arrested by FBI agents, including a wad of paper with notes that included the words “contingencies,” “vacation mid-Nov?,” and “run.” Another paper contained a series of digits that the government is now working to decipher.
To the prosecutors, those notes suggested that Rahman was a flight risk. Rahman’s defense attorney, Amy Jeffress of the firm Arnold & Porter, said there was a more innocent explanation.
“He’s a runner,” Jeffress said. “I don’t know why anyone would write ‘run’ on a to-do list when they’re trying to run from the law.”
Davis, the magistrate judge, appeared to be swayed by Rahman’s lack of prior criminal history and his strong ties to the Washington, D.C., area. His father lives in Bethesda, Maryland, and property records suggest that Rahman’s wife lives in Vienna, Virginia.
In court, Jeffress pointed to the 11 relatives and supporters sitting behind her as evidence that Rahman would not attempt to flee.
Still, a government prosecutor raised concerns that Rahman could still cause further damage to U.S.–Israeli relations from the comfort of his father’s home on a leafy street in the well-to-do suburb.
Edwards said that regardless of whether he still had access to documents, Rahman undoubtedly had memories of classified information. To spread that, Edwards said, “all it takes is the snap of a finger and a click of a button.”
Under questioning from Davis, Edwards said the government did not know whether Rahman might still have access to secret electronic information stored elsewhere. Davis said he thought the government was short on concrete indications that Rahman might flee or leak more.
“I’m hearing a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘coulds’ — which is all speculation,” he said.
Davis said he was satisfied by the family’s promises to restrict Rahman from access to any electronic devices that are not equipped with monitoring.
Prosecutors said they would appeal his release order to U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Joe Biden appointee.
Rahman appeared in court wearing a green jumpsuit and did not speak.
A Question of Motive
While neither prosecutors nor defense lawyers touched on the question of motive, Rahman’s prosecution on Espionage Act charges has already raised concerns for one civil liberties group.
That group, Defending Rights and Dissent, said last month that while Rahman’s motives were unclear, the fact that he was charged under the Espionage Act could have troubling implications.
“Rahman did not disclose the documents to a journalist — though, once released, the documents received widespread press coverage and were clearly in the public interest,” said the group. “Rahman may or may not have released the documents with the intent to promote public debate, but the Espionage Act makes no distinction between whistleblowers, spies, and those with alternative motives for disclosing national defense information.”
While court records give little information about Rahman besides his name and age, a trail of online material stretching back to his days as a teenager in Ohio can be found online.
Along with pursuits including Scrabble and running track, Rahman appeared to have an early interest in social justice causes.
At around 13 years old, Rahman and a group of classmates designed a website titled “Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Story of Child Labor.”
Two years later, Rahman alongside one of his sisters and other classmates, would go on to design another site entitled “A Dollar a Day: Finding Solutions to Poverty.” Both websites won the Oracle Foundation design competitions. Alongside that site, Rahman maintained a blog dedicated to exploring measures for alleviating poverty.
Among the class of 2009 at Indian Hill High School, Rahman was a hallmark of overachievement: an AP National Scholar, a National Merit Scholarship finalist, and class valedictorian. Rahman delivered the year’s commencement speech, noting that “Much awaits the Class of 2009 — success, certainly, but also unforeseen challenges.”
After high school, Rahman headed off to Yale, a local newspaper reported. During college, he served as a copy editor for the Yale Daily News. After graduation, Rahman became a fixed income broker at Morgan Stanley for two years, according to financial records. He graduated in three years, according to a defense filing.
Prosecutors said Friday that Rahman had joined the CIA by 2016, around the time when the trail of digital evidence about him begins petering out.
In 2019, Rahman was listed as the buyer on a house in Vienna, Virginia, about a 20-minute drive from the CIA headquarters building. One of the lenders was his father, Muhit Rahman.
Muhit Rahman, who declined comment, has worked as a private equity fund manager and founded a nonprofit called the Bangladesh Relief Fund, which has distributed funds in the South Asian country designed to alleviate poverty and address the ravages of recurrent flooding.
In a 2004 letter announcing his creation of the fund, the elder Rahman stated, “The images that I cannot shake off are not those of water, water as far as the eyes can see, nor of bodies and carcasses flowing rapidly by. They are of children rendered mute by suffering and more suffering.”
More recently he struck a similar note on a GoFundMe page created in February that aimed to raise money for Palestinian children.
Asking donors to chip in $26.20, or a dollar for each mile of a marathon he was going to run, Muhit Rahman said that the money was for “the silent children of Gaza.” He posted a picture of the singlet he wore while running the Tokyo Marathon, which included a Palestinian flag inscribed with the names of his donors. Nestled above the slogan “For the children — who are always innocent” was a partial name: Asif R.
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