The FBI has arrested a CIA contractor accused of systematically pulling TOP SECRET national defense information outside the scope of his duties and feeding it to his romantic partner, a left-leaning independent journalist who published matching material on her Substack newsletter.
Ian A. Brinksman, 42, of Washington, D.C., was taken into custody Friday following a search of his residence and charged by criminal complaint with unlawfully transmitting national defense information in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(d). The case was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, Newsmax reported.
An Original Classification Authority has confirmed that five Substack articles contained classified information reflecting the contents of TOP SECRET reports Brinksman accessed, some carrying TS/SCI banners that by definition could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security if disclosed without authorization.
According to the sworn FBI affidavit by Special Agent John W. Althen, Brinksman held a TS/SCI clearance and worked inside a SCIF for a U.S. government agency (identified in public reporting and by CIA Director John Ratcliffe as the CIA) beginning around 2020 before shifting in September 2022 to a systems integration developer role for a third-party contractor supporting the same agency.
His duties included data transfers between classified and unclassified systems. None of the five reports he accessed were within the scope of his work.
The affidavit details a repeating pattern across 2026: contact with “Individual 1” (identified in contemporaneous reporting as Aída Chávez, founder of the Capital & Empire Substack), followed by Brinksman accessing a TOP SECRET report in the classified database, additional calls, and then a Substack post with overlapping content.
Phone records show more than 800 calls or attempted calls between the pair this year. Badge-swipe data, facility entry/exit logs, and short windows outside the secure facility (where personal cell phones are not permitted) align with the communications.
