Indian-Origin Expert Ashley Tellis Arrested, Denies Charges Over Classified Files

Ashley Tellis, a Mumbai-born powerhouse who shaped the landmark US-India nuclear pact under George W. Bush and continued advising the State Department unpaid has been slapped with federal charges for unlawfully retaining over 1,000 pages of top-secret national defense documents at his Virginia home, a cache uncovered during an FBI raid on October 11 that included files stuffed in locked cabinets, basement desks, and even black trash bags, all while surveillance footage captured him printing sensitive Air Force manuals after hours and schmoozing with Chinese officials at Fairfax eateries, including one suspicious handoff of a manila envelope amid gift bags and talks on Iran-China ties and emerging tech.

Tellis, 64, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who's been placed on administrative leave amid the uproar, was arrested Saturday just as he and his family were set to jet off to Rome, facing up to 10 years behind bars under the Espionage Act for violations like 18 USC § 793(e) that prohibit mishandling defense info, though prosecutors emphasize the charges center on improper storage rather than outright spying, even as FBI affidavits detail his repeated post-2022 dinners with People's Republic of China reps—four documented instances—raising eyebrows about potential leaks in an era of heightened US-China tensions and Trump's no-holds-barred crackdown on classified mishaps led by DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

Through his legal eagles Deborah Curtis and John Nassikas, Tellis fired back Wednesday with a fierce denial, branding himself a "widely respected scholar and senior policy advisor" whose career—from National Security Council staffer to Pentagon contractor at the freshly rebranded Department of War—has been a bulwark for US-India ties, vehemently rejecting any "insinuation of operating on behalf of a foreign adversary" and vowing a full-throated courtroom battle against allegations that paint him as a careless custodian of secrets on everything from military aircraft capabilities to economic reforms, all accessed via his top-secret clearance at secure facilities where he allegedly renamed files like a 1,288-page Air Force tome to "Econ Reform" before spiriting prints away in a leather briefcase.

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This saga casts a long shadow over Tellis's recent pivot as a Washington skeptic on India, where he's sparred publicly over New Delhi's stances on Ukraine and economic laggard status against China's "glacial" growth, positioning him as a contrarian voice in think-tank debates that's now under a microscope for possible ulterior motives, jolting the strategic community from Delhi to Beijing and amplifying fears of insider threats in the very halls where he once bridged democracies, with investigators probing whether those Fairfax feasts crossed from academic chit-chat into treacherous territory.

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