Daniel Everette Hale, 31, of Nashville, Tenn., was arrested on federal charges Thursday. The reporter that Hale leaked this information to is not named in the indictment, but the charging document identifies him as Jeremy Scahill of the Intercept, an outspoken critic of America's military activities overseas.
Hale "printed off a series of Secret and Top Secret documents through his position with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, many of which he then provided to the reporter."
The day that Hale is alleged to have met with the reporter at the reporter's bookstore event, April 29, 2013, is the same day Scahill held a discussion and signing for his book Dirty Wars at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. The indictment states that in May 2013 Hale said the reporter "wants me to tell my story about working with drones at the opening screening of his documentary about the war and the use of drones."
Scahill's book accompanied a 2013 documentary of the same name that was critical of secretive U.S. military operations, including drone warfare. The indictment states that Hale again met the reporter at another book event on June 8, 2013 - the same day Scahill was hosted at Busboys & Poets for another discussion about Dirty Wars.
© Andy Kropa/Invision/APReporter for The Intercept, Jeremy Scahill
Scahill wrote that the documents "were provided by a source within the intelligence community who worked on the types of operations and programs described in the slides. The Intercept granted the source's request for anonymity because the materials are classified and because the U.S. government has engaged in aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers."
Hale is charged with crimes, including "obtaining national defense information, retention and transmission of national defense information, causing the communication of national defense information, disclosure of classified communications intelligence information, and theft of government property." Each of those charges carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
This is not the first time that the Intercept has been involved in a criminal leaks case. Reality Winner, a military contractor, was arrested in June 2017 for leaking classified information. The NSA document, which she leaked to the Intercept, was related to Russian efforts to hack into U.S. election systems. The Intercept published a story based on the document and was criticized for failing to protect Winner as a source. Betsy Reed, the Intercept's editor-in-chief, eventually admitted that "at several points in the editorial process, our practices fell short of the standards to which we hold ourselves for minimizing the risks of source exposure when handling anonymously provided materials."
In August 2018, Winner was sentenced to over five years in prison.
Hale had been in the Air Force from July 2009 to July 2013, during which time he deployed to Afghanistan as an intelligence analyst with the National Security Agency. Hale then worked as a political geography analyst with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency between December 2013 and August 2014. Through these positions, Hale held a top secret security clearance of sensitive compartmented information, which the Justice Department says he used to leak stories to the media.
According to the unsealed indictment, beginning in April 2013 while he was still with the NSA, Hale met with the reporter in person numerous times and messaged with him many times, including through Jabber, an encrypted messaging platform.
The indictment says this began in April 2013 when Hale searched the internet for information on this reporter and, when he found the reporter would be appearing at a book store event in D.C. on April 29, 2013, he showed up at the event to meet him. They emailed, texted, and called each other throughout the spring and summer of 2013, and began to use Jabber as well when the reporter asked Hale to "just set up a [Jabber] account [so] we can chat on encrypted]."
It added: "On or about June 9, 2013, the reporter sent Hale an email with a link to an article about Edward Snowden in an online publication. That same day, Hale texted a friend that the previous night he had been hanging out with journalists who were focused on his story. Hale wrote that the evening's events might provide him with 'lifelong connections with people who publish work like this.'"
The indictment states that Hale "had been advised that the unauthorized displeasure of Top Secret information reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States." He is due to appear before a Nashville judge on Thursday.
Daniel Hale Indictment by on Scribd
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Scahill for comment.
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