An Alexandria man pleaded guilty Wednesday (Aug. 26) to transmission of national defense information to a foreign government.
Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 29, an IT specialist in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Insider Threat Division, was arrested on May 29, 2025, after making a dead drop at a prearranged location. The Federal Bureau of Investigation started its investigation into Laatsch in March 2025, after he sent an email decrying the Trump administration and offering to give classified information to a “friendly foreign government,” according to court records.
In that email, Laatsch wrote:
I am an officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) serving in a technical role in support of our internal Office of Security (SEC). The recent actions of the current administration are extremely disturbing to me … I do not agree or align with the values of this administration and intend to act to support the values that the United States at one time stood for. To this end, I am willing to share classified information that I have access to, which are completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation.
Laatsch, who had a Top Secret security clearance, also provided an “encrypted messaging application” for the email recipient, as well as photos of the front and back of two of his U.S. government identification cards with his name and photograph blacked out.
“Although the individual’s name and photograph were redacted from the images of the U.S. government IDs that were sent to [the foreign government], through other information that was not redacted on one of the U.S. government IDs, law enforcement was able to determine that the U.S. government ID belonged to Laatsch,” court records say.
After Laatsch was identified, an undercover FBI agent started communicating with him via email.
“During the course of those communications, Laatsch indicated that he had access to multiple repositories containing classified information by virtue of his position with DIA and offered to provide classified information to the individual he believed to be a representative of [the foreign country],” according to court records.
Laatsch then confirmed that he took classified information from DIA and dropped off a thumb drive at a dead drop at a public park in Arlington on May 1, 2025.
“Following Laatsch’s departure, the FBI retrieved the item, which was a thumb drive later found to contain a message from Laatsch and nine typed documents, each containing information that was portion-marked up to the Secret or Top Secret Levels,” according to court records.
Between April 15 and mid-May 2025, surveillance footage captured at DIA showed Laatsch writing on multiple pages of notes at his desk, tearing the notes from a notepad, folding them and stuffing them into his socks, according to court records.
Laatsch told the FBI that he wasn’t opposed to financial compensation, but was interested in becoming a citizen of the foreign country.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said that U.S. government employees must protect the nation’s secrets and “not cavalierly toss aside this responsibility out of disagreement, selfishness or greed.”
“Laatsch faces serious consequences for violating his position of trust,” Blanche said. “This case shows that if you unlawfully disclose national defense information, we will find you and hold you accountable to the fullest extent the law allows.”
John A. Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for national security, said that disclosing government secrets is a “serious crime, not a form of dissent.”
“Laatsch’s animus toward the U.S. government gave him no license to betray the oath he took to the Constitution of the United States nor the duty he had to the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our Nation,” Eisenberg said.
Theophani K. Stamos, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and Arlington’s former commonwealth’s attorney, said that political disagreements don’t justify jeopardizing national security.
“No one is entitled to break the law or violate the public trust, no matter their motivations, and this office will aggressively prosecute those who recklessly and illegally compromise national security,” Stamos said.
Laatsch received his bachelor’s degree in cyber security from Florida Polytechnic University in 2018, and started work at DIA the following year, according to court records. He faces up to life imprisonment and will be sentenced by a federal district court judge on Jan. 27, 2027.
