A foreign policy analyst who worked at the State Department has been charged with leaking a top-secret intelligence report to a news reporter last year, the Justice Department said on Friday.
Stephen Kim, who had briefed former Vice President Dick Cheney and other top U.S. officials, was indicted for violating an espionage law barring disclosure of national defense information and lying to the FBI about his contacts with the reporter.
The Justice Department did not identify the reporter and described the journalist's employer as a "national news organization."
Prosecutors said the incident happened in 2009 but gave little detail about the classified intelligence report except that it concerned the "military capabilities and preparedness of a particular foreign nation."
Kim, 43, an employee of a federal contractor on detail to the State Department, has written previously about U.S.-Korean relations.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released pending trial. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison on the espionage count and five years for lying.
"Stephen Kim was on detail from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to the Department of State at the time of the alleged disclosure," said a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
By: Brant
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