FBI agent charged with leaking classified documents to media

The Justice Department has filed charges against a former FBI agent accusing him of leaking classified documents to a news outlet.

Terry Albury, whom Minnesota Public Radioreported worked on counterterrorism matters at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, stands accused of two counts — “knowingly and willfully” transmitting national defense information to The Intercept, and refusing to hand over a document related to terrorism recruitment.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, officials filed a two-page felony information document, which the paper described as “a charging document that typically signals an imminent guilty plea.”

The documents Mr. Albury is accused of giving to the Intercept assessed confidential human sources and concerned “threats posed by certain individuals from a particular Middle Eastern country.”

The failure to hand-over charge, the Star-Tribune reported, concerned papers “relating to the use of an online platform for recruitment by a specific terrorist group.”

The felony information document, reportedly filed this week by Justice’s National Security Division, does not specify the news outlet, but both MPR and the Star-Tribune said it was the Intercept, based on publishing dates and the information described in the document.

The Intercept published in January 2017 “The FBI’s Secret Rules,” a series that federal prosecutors say was based on Mr. Albury’s leaked documents. The series painted the FBI as deepening and broadening its powers and recruitment efforts since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Under President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice has promised to go after more vigorously than in previous years those employees who leak national-security secrets.