Ashley Tellis: Ashley J Tellis, a prominent US scholar on India who has served as an advisor to multiple US administrations, has been detained and charged with the unlawful retention of classified information and purported meetings with Chinese officials.

The US Justice Department has charged Tellis, who was a member of the National Security Council under Republican President George W. Bush, with printing classified documents and keeping over 1,000 pages of sensitive government records in filing cabinets and trash bags at his residence. Ashley Tellis, aged 64, is mentioned in an FBI court affidavit as a contractor for the Pentagon and an unpaid adviser to the State Department.

Charges Against Ashley Tellis:
As stated in an FBI affidavit, Tellis was observed entering the buildings of the Defence and State Departments in September and October of this year. He accessed and printed classified documents, including information about military aircraft capabilities, before leaving by car with a leather briefcase or bag.

Sworn by FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Scott, the affidavit outlines a careful surveillance operation that commenced when Tellis was observed entering the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA) in Alexandria, Virginia, on the night of September 25.

Video Recordings From Ashley’s Case:

Video recordings showed Tellis “printing multiple classified documents,” one of which was labeled top secret, and subsequently hiding them in notepads. The affidavit noted that Tellis was observed arranging documents, including one classified as TOP SECRET, among his notepads and aligning them with the pages. He subsequently put the notepads with the documents into his leather briefcase and exited the facility.

The affidavit stated that Tellis accessed the Department of State’s “Classnet” system, which is used for classified communications, on September 25, 2025. According to the logs, he opened a 1,288-page document from the US Air Force and re-saved it under a misleading name, “Econ Reform”. Then he printed parts of the file in several batches.

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Tellis clicked the drop-down menu for printer selection and chose a printer at HST. The affidavit stated that around 8:26 p.m., he pressed the print button and removed the file from the computer system.

In the following weeks, investigators closely monitored his movements. On October 10, 2025, they launched an operation after spotting Tellis entering the ONA SCIF again with the same leather briefcase. Surveillance footage showed him reading documents that agents identified as TOP SECRET and previously printed. He then slipped those documents into his notepads and left the facility.

The next day, agents from the FBI searched his residence in Vienna, Virginia, having obtained prior judicial authorization for this action. Their discovery was astonishing. „Paper documents exceeding a thousand pages with classification markings at the TOP SECRET and/or SECRET levels“, stored in locked cabinets, on his desk, and even in „three large black trash bags in an unfinished basement storage room.“

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