James A. Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Intelligence committee, has been arrested, the DOJ announced on Thursday.
Wolfe, a longtime non-partisan aide is charged with three counts of making false statements to FBI investigators, about his contact with reporters. Each false statement charge can be punishable with up to five years in prison.
On or around December 15, 2017, Wolfe was questioned by FBI agents in regards to their open investigation into unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the media, that had first been provided to the Senate Intelligence committee.
When asked if he had any contract with any of reporters, three specifically, he answered “no.”
When confronted with photos of one of the reporters he explained that he lied to investigators, “WOLFE admitted to the FBI agents that he had lied to them, and that he had engaged in a personal relationship with REPORTER #2 since 2014” Wolfe maintained to the FBI agents, that he had never shared classified information with reporter number two.
Reporter number two is Ali Watkins, who currently works for The New York Times, she and Wolfe had a personal relationship starting around 2014 when Watkins was a grad student, the relationship lasted for about three years ending sometime around December 2017.
According to the indictment the FBI was interested how Watkins learned Cater Page, a one-time foreign policy adviser for then candidate Trump, had been contracted by Russian spies as a possible recruitment in 2013. Watkins article appeared @ Buzzfeed on April 3rd, 2017, Carter Page confirmed to Watkins that he had been contacted by Russian spies for her article.
In February Watkins was notified by the Justice Department that her records had been seized, the Times says they learned of the letter Thursday and that it came from national security division of the United States attorney’s office in Washington.
The other three reporters from the indictment, have not been named as of the writing of this post.
Wolfe is not charged with disclosing classified information to the reporters and is expected in court Friday.
