CIA Leaker Asif Rahman Sentence Was Less Than Guidelines

A federal judge in Virginia sentenced the former CIA employee who leaked Israeli military secrets to three years and one month in prison on Wednesday, rejecting the government’s request for a much harsher term.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said she had to balance the potential harm caused by Asif William Rahman’s disclosure of secret analyses of Israel’s plans for an attack on Iran against his swift decision to cooperate and plead guilty to two Espionage Act violations.

“For you to go from that to this — reckless, dangerous — I understand that something must have been going on.”

While the high school valedictorian and Yale University graduate sat in a green jail jumpsuit at the defense table, Giles gave credit to the defense’s argument that Rahman acted both in response to soaring tensions in the Middle East and out of trauma caused in part by a deployment to Iraq.

“For someone who has lived such a law-abiding life for all these years,” she said, “for you to go from that to this — reckless, dangerous — I understand that something must have been going on.”

In addition to his prison term, she gave Rahman two years’ probation and a $50,000 fine. Rahman’s sentence was significantly lower than the nine years the government requested in a briefing last month — a sentence prosecutors said was warranted by the harm he “could have” caused and ill will demonstrated by a list of relatively routine phone apps.

Defense lawyers responded that the request violated the spirit if not the letter of Rahman’s plea agreement and that bumping the prison term so far beyond sentencing guidelines despite his cooperation was “unprecedented.”

In the end, the defense prevailed, and Giles’s sentence ended up below the statutory guideline.

Secretive Case

The sentencing capped a relatively short and secretive legal process that began with Rahman’s arrest last November in Cambodia, where he was posted with the CIA. A month earlier, the government analyses of Israel’s preparations for a strike on Iran were made public on social media. Prosecutors have said that those disclosures may have briefly delayed the Israeli strike that took place later that month.

Much remains publicly unknown about Rahman’s disclosures, including how many other documents he leaked and who he leaked them to. Prosecutors said the disclosures spanned multiple months.

Giles hinted, however, that the other documents Rahman leaked contained highly sensitive information.

“What is on the public record is small to me,” she said. Still-classified records that are unknown to the public, she said, “shows how serious this conduct is, how dangerous it is, how reckless.”

In a reflection of the top-secret nature of the documents Rahman disclosed last year, the courtroom remained sealed to the public for much of the four-hour sentencing hearing.

A federal prosecutor said Wednesday that it had backed off the high end of that recommendation, without publicly disclosing the government’s new request.

In court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Edwards acknowledged that prosecutors had not charged Rahman with a separate offense that would have required them to show actual harm.

While acknowledging that the judge had a “complicated” decision to make, he said she should hand down a sentence that would deter future leakers.

“When you take an oath to serve this country it means something,” Edwards said, “and it has to mean something.”

Ignoring Trump Appointee

Giles said she had completely discarded the inflammatory allegation in a declaration from a high-level political appointee at the CIA, Michael Ellis, that Rahman had caused “exceptionally grave” damage to national security.

Defense lawyers had cried foul over that declaration, which they said was not backed up by any evidence, and over a directive — which they said came from top Justice Department officials — to seek a sentence close to the 10-year maximum despite Rahman’s extensive cooperation.

They asked the judge to hand Rahman a 13-month sentence, but they and a large group of family members and supporters appeared to be satisfied with a prison term below the statutory guideline of roughly five to six years. Several family members exchanged hugs with Rahman’s defense lawyers after the hearing.

Lawyer Amy Jeffress told The Intercept she did not expect to appeal the sentence.

In public court filings, the defense gave only vague explanations of the political motivations for the leaks, saying that Rahman acted out of a “misguided” belief that he could advance the cause of peace.

The former analyst himself addressed the judge in a brief courtroom statement where he apologized to his former colleagues at the CIA and said he constantly frets that his disclosures could have endangered service members in the Middle East.

“There is no excuse for my actions. I constantly reflect on the trust that I violated,” he said. “It was an honor and a privilege to work at the CIA.”