A former Minneapolis FBI agent has been charged with leaking classified information to news website The Intercept, according to MPR News.
MPR writes that Terry James Albury, who started his career with the FBI in 2000, is charged with leaking controlled documents to the news outlet, which are said to have formed the basis of a series of articles called “The Secret Rules of the FBI.”
Albury, the only African-American field agent in Minnesota, has been charged with one count of “knowingly and willfully” transmitting documents and information relating to national defense to a reporter for a national news organization, and a second count of refusing to hand over documents to the government.
MPR reports that the FBI identified about 27 secret documents published by the Intercept in 2016 and 2017, and the news outlet made two Freedom of Information requests in 2016, which pertained to information that was not available to the public.
A search warrant filed by the FBI in Minneapolis federal court, which did not name the news outlet, stated, “The FBI believes that the classified and/or controlled nature of the documents indicates the News Outlet obtained these documents from someone with direct access to them. Furthermore, reviews of the FBI internal records indicate ALBURY has electronically accessed over two thirds of the approximately 27 documents via trusted access granted to him on FBI information systems.”
“To date, a review of FBI records has revealed no indication that any individual other than ALBURY both accessed this document and conducted cut and paste action,” adds the warrant. It also cites 11 screenshots that Albury took of the document, and video surveillance footage of him photographing his computer screen.
In a statement, Albury’s attorneys JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel said that he was “driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI.”
“Terry Albury served the U.S. with distinction both here at home and abroad in Iraq,” said the lawyers. “He accepts full responsibility for the conduct set forth in the Information.”
