Kill the messenger

The Department of Justice on Wednesday announced the arrest of a Defense Intelligence Agency official for allegedly leaking classified information to journalists, including one with whom he was apparently in a relationship.

Law enforcement officials arrested 30-year-old Henry Kyle Frese of Virginia and charged him with two counts of willful transmission of national defense information. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

According to charging documents filed with a federal court in Virginia, the information that Frese allegedly leaked involved a foreign country's weapons system.

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The filings detail the FBI's surveillance of Frese and how they captured phone calls and direct messages on Twitter between him and the two journalists, who apparently both covered national security.

John Demers, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, said during a call with reporters Wednesday that the arrest was part of the agency's effort to step up its crackdown on government employees leaking classified information.

"Leaks of classified information cause undeniable damage to our national security," Demers said.

Demers, though, demurred when a reporter asked how the leak of information about another country damaged U.S. national security

Demers said Frese was the sixth person to be charged with leaking to the media or the public over the past two years.

  The Hill