A former CIA analyst who leaked Israeli strike plans against Iran was sentenced to just three years and one month in prison on Wednesday.
Asif William Rahman, 34, of Vienna, Virginia, was convicted of “unlawfully retaining and transmitting Top Secret National Defense Information to people who were not entitled to receive it,” the U.S. Department of Justice said. Rahman was arrested in November 2024 and pled guilty to two counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information related to the national defense in January 2025. He had faced up to 10 years in prison on each count if convicted.
He had been employed by the CIA since 2016 and had Top Secret security clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI), The Daily Wire previously reported.
“Asif Rahman violated his position of trust by illegally accessing, removing, and transmitting Top Secret documents vital to the national security of the United States and its allies,” said Erik S. Siebert, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “This case should serve as a stern warning to those who choose to place their own goals over their allegiance to our nation.”
The DOJ said Rahman “accessed and printed two Top Secret documents containing National Defense Information” on October 17, 2024.
The next day, the documents appeared on multiple social media platforms, including a pro-Iran Telegram account, The Daily Wire reported at the time.
The leaked documents included information from U.S. satellites on Israeli military preparations for the strike against Iran. The documents were intended to be viewed only by members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Israel launched airstrikes targeting military bases around Iran’s capital city of Tehran later in October, The Daily Wire reported. The strikes came in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier that month.
The DOJ continued:
In 2024, continuing through November, Rahman repeatedly accessed and printed classified National Defense Information, including documents classified up to the Top Secret and further compartmented levels, that he learned in the course of his employment and transmitted to multiple individuals he knew were not entitled to receive it.
“For months, this defendant betrayed the American people and the oaths he took upon entering his office by leaking some of our Nation’s most closely held secrets,” said John Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.