NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
An adviser to the State Department and Pentagon was arrested this week. He is suspected of providing information to Chinese officials, according to an FBI affidavit in the case.
Ashley Tellis, a Mumbai-born naturalized citizen, was arrested Sunday at his residence where 1,000 pages of classified documents were found during an FBI search.
Mr. Tellis, who held a top-secret security clearance, was charged with illegal retention of defense secrets following a multiyear investigation that included video surveillance inside secret document facilities.
The FBI also suspects Mr. Tellis provided defense secrets to Chinese officials during a dinner meeting in September that involved an exchange of an envelope for a gift bag.
“The charges as alleged in this case represent a grave risk to the safety and security of our citizens,” said Lindsey Halligan, the lead U.S. attorney in the case, in a statement.
“The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served.”
According to the affidavit, the FBI surveilled Mr. Tellis leaving government buildings with a briefcase they believe contained illegally removed secret documents.
Mr. Tellis, a former White House National Security Council aide during the George W. Bush administration, currently is an Indian and South Asian affairs analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He had been planning a trip abroad prior to his arrest, the FBI said.
While not charged with spying, the arrest was made under a section of the 1917 Espionage Act that makes it a crime to possess and provide national defense information to unauthorized persons.
If confirmed as a spy case, it could prove to be a major loss of secrets to China. China has been conducting aggressive spying operations for more than a decade.
Deborah Curtis and John Nassikas, lawyers for Mr. Tellis, said their client is a widely respected scholar and senior policy adviser.
“At the next court hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday and in our related filings on Monday, we will be vigorously contesting the allegations brought against him, specifically any insinuation of his operating on behalf of a foreign adversary,” Ms. Curtis and Mr. Nassikas said in a statement.
According to the FBI affidavit, Mr. Tellis was an unpaid adviser for the State Department and a contractor with the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, which is in the process of being disbanded.
FBI video surveillance of Mr. Tellis revealed he printed out “top secret” and “secret” documents in September regarding U.S. military aircraft capabilities and unspecified “adversary” aircraft. The documents were obtained from ONA and State Department classified databases, the affidavit said.
One document was produced by the Air Force Weapons School and contained information on military aircraft capabilities.
Under video surveillance, Mr. Tellis was seen altering the title of the 1,200-page Air Force military document with the title “Econ Reform,” in an apparent bid to hide its contents, the affidavit said.
The documents were then taken to his Vienna, Virginia, home, the affidavit said.
The FBI says it thinks Mr. Tellis shared information with Chinese officials for years, including during several recent dinner meetings.
“TELLIS has met with government officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on multiple occasions over the past several years,” the affidavit said.
Details of the affidavit indicate Mr. Tellis was spotted during routine FBI counterintelligence monitoring of Chinese Embassy officials, many of whom are suspected or known Chinese intelligence officers.
During one meeting Sept. 11 at a restaurant in Fairfax, Mr. Tellis was observed by agents placing a manila envelope on the table and receiving a gift bag.
Mr. Tellis “did not appear to have the manila envelope in his possession upon his departure from the restaurant,” the affidavit stated.
Judge John F. Anderson, a federal magistrate in district court in Alexandria, ordered Mr. Tellis held in jail until a detention hearing is held Oct. 21.
AI modernizing nuclear warheads
The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration is using artificial intelligence as part of an extensive modernization program for nuclear warheads.
David Beck, the nominee for the post of NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs disclosed new details of the warhead modernization program in little noticed Senate testimony Oct. 7.
Mr. Beck, who has more than 40 years’ experience working with nuclear weapons, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that warhead and other modernization are a priority.
“We face a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Our adversaries are acting with increasing speed and boldness, seeking to challenge our security and undermine our deterrence posture,” he said.
“In response, we must act with urgency and precision. Our mission cannot fail; therefore, we must lead with discipline, innovation, and an unwavering focus on results.”
Mr. Beck disclosed in written answers to committee questions that AI is being leveraged by NNSA to maintain and modernize all current warheads in the stockpile.
“I fully expect that [AI] will increasingly become an indispensable tool for NNSA,” he stated.
AI at NNSA involves the use of supercomputers, new AI-based processes and machine learning to solve problems for warhead modernization.
“This includes material discovery, design optimization, and advanced manufacturing within the nuclear security enterprise,” he stated.
If confirmed, I will evaluate the use of AI and machine learning and application across Defense Programs’ mission space.
Mr. Beck said newly emerging AI applications can provide NNSA with “a continued advantage over U.S. adversaries in the design and manufacture of nuclear weapons.”
“AI and machine learning technologies could optimize experimental designs, analyze diagnostic data and improve facility operations,” he said.
Advanced manufacturing techniques could accelerate production and improve the quality of components and systems used in nuclear weapons.
Asked if NNSA is developing AI for nuclear systems compared to adversary states, Mr. Beck said advanced technologies are essential to maintaining U.S. supremacy in the nuclear arena.
The nominee also provided the most complete public disclosure of current modernization efforts for seven warheads.
They include missile and bomber warheads designated as B61-12, W88 Alt 370, W80-4, W87-1, W93, B61-13 and the development of the low-yield submarine-launched nuclear cruise missile known as SLCM-N.
Mr. Beck also reveals that strategic war planners are facing problems in maintaining deterrence against growing nuclear threats from China, North Korea and Russia.
“NNSA must continue to be responsive to [Department of War] requirements while developing capabilities to meet any kind of deterrent gap that may emerge well into the future,” he stated.
“Above all, our nuclear modernization plan must deter the full range of threats posed by adversaries and ensure the United States has an enduring safe, secure, and effective nuclear stockpile.”
Mr. Beck vowed that if confirmed a top priority will be to ensure NNSA facilities deliver critical programs on time and on budget.
Chrisitan crackdown followed Xi call for religion to back communism
President Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, recently called on all religions in China to “further adapt” to the communist system.
That further adaptation pronouncement on Sept. 28 was followed two weeks later by a renewed crackdown on unofficial Christian churches in China.
Police detained dozens of underground church pastors beginning last weekend in what is thought to be the largest crackdown on Christians in China since 2018.
The detentions were carried out amid mounting tensions between Washington and Beijing over China’s blocking of rare earth metals and related components and a threatened 100% additional U.S. tariffs on China in response.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for the immediate release of the detained pastors.
“The United States condemns the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s recent detention of dozens of leaders of the unregistered house Zion Church in China, including prominent pastor Mingri ’Ezra’ Jin,” Mr. Rubio said in a statement.
“This crackdown further demonstrates how the CCP exercises hostility towards Christians who reject Party interference in their faith and choose to worship at unregistered house churches,” he said.
Mr. Rubio called on the CCP to immediately release the pastors and allow all people of faith, including those in unofficial house churches, “to engage in religious activities without fear of retribution.”
Police also are interrogating hundreds of Christians as part of the crackdown.
China is believed to have a Christian population of between 20 million and 100 million believers. They flourished under the CCP’s retrenchment from hard-line communism in the 1980s.
Under Mr. Xi, a die-hard Marxist-Leninist, religion is being repressed.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom stated in a report made public last month that China is using imprisonment, forced disappearance and torture in persecuting religious leaders.
“Religious leaders must conform to the Chinese Communist Party’s political ideology and submit to the state’s intrusive system of control in order to legally engage in religious activities,” the report said. “Those who refuse to do so face severe punishments, including surveillance, fines, retribution against family members, detention, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture, and other forms of mistreatment and abuse.”
Mr. Xi said during a study session of the Party’s Central Committee Politburo that religious groups in China must “adapt to socialist society.”
Since 2012, the officially secular CCP put forward new requirements for religious groups must be “Chinese in orientation,” he stated.
• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.