(Image source from: Wikimedia Commons)
Ashley J Tellis, a prominent American expert on India who has provided guidance to various US administrations, has been arrested and faces charges for improperly keeping classified documents and supposedly meeting with officials from China. The US Justice Department claims that Tellis, who worked on the National Security Council under George W Bush, a former Republican president, printed classified papers and stored over 1,000 pages of sensitive government materials in filing cabinets and trash bags in his residence.
The FBI’s court documents identify Ashley Tellis, aged 64, as a volunteer advisor to the State Department and a contractor for the Pentagon. An affidavit from the FBI states that in September and October of this year, Tellis was seen entering buildings belonging to the Defence and State Departments and was noted accessing and printing sensitive documents related to military aircraft capabilities, leaving in a car with a leather briefcase or bag. The affidavit, sworn by FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Scott, outlines a thorough surveillance effort initiated after Tellis was spotted entering the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA) in Alexandria, Virginia, late on the evening of September 25.
Video evidence showed Tellis "printing several classified documents," including one labeled as top secret, and later hiding these within notepads. The affidavit mentioned that "Tellis was seen... placing documents, including one classified at the TOP SECRET level, among his notepads, then arranging them so they lined up with the pages," before putting the notepads with the documents into his leather briefcase and exiting the facility. On September 25, 2025, the affidavit highlighted that Tellis accessed the State Department's "Classnet" system, which is used for classified communications. Records indicated he opened and re-saved a 1,288-page document from the US Air Force, misleadingly renaming it “Econ Reform.” He subsequently printed parts of this file in several batches. "Tellis selected a printer labeled HST from the printer options, and at around 8:26 pm, he hit the print button," the affidavit stated. He later removed the file from the computer system.
In the weeks that followed, detectives followed his actions, leading to an event on October 10, 2025, when Tellis was seen again going into the ONA SCIF with the same leather briefcase. Surveillance revealed him reading what agents marked as previously classified TOP SECRET documents, which he again tucked into his notebooks before leaving. The next day, FBI agents carried out a court-approved search at his home in Vienna, Virginia. What they discovered was astonishing. "More than a thousand pages of documents marked as TOP SECRET and/or SECRET," secured in locked cabinets, on his desk, and even inside "three large black trash bags in an unfinished basement storage area." It stated that Tellis met with officials from the People's Republic of China (PRC) several times at a restaurant in the Washington suburb of Fairfax, Virginia, over the years. At one dinner on September 15, Tellis arrived with a manila envelope but did not seem to take it with him when he left, and on two occasions, the Chinese officials gave him a gift bag, according to the affidavit.
Prosecutors noted that because of his job with the State Department and Pentagon, Tellis held a Top Secret security clearance which allowed him access to Sensitive Compartmented Information.
A search of his home in Vienna, Virginia, on Saturday, October 11, found over a thousand pages of classified documents with top secret and secret labels. The State Department confirmed that Tellis was arrested on Saturday after the home searches, the same day the affidavit stated he was supposed to fly to Rome. Officials chose not to provide more comments due to the ongoing investigation. The FBI's affidavit ends by stating there is "probable cause" to think that Tellis intentionally kept classified defense information, breaking federal law. If found guilty of the charges related to unlawfully holding documents, Tellis could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, according to the Justice Department. "The charges in this case pose a serious threat to the safety and security of our citizens," stated Lindsey Halligan, the US attorney for Virginia's Eastern District, known for going after critics of President Donald Trump.
Tellis, a naturalized US citizen originally from India, is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and held high-ranking positions during former President George W Bush's administration. He assisted in negotiating the Bush administration's civil nuclear agreement with India, considered a significant step in strengthening the relationship between the world's two largest democracies. However, in recent years, Tellis has gained recognition as a vocal critic of the US's approach towards India. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Tellis claimed India often followed policies that conflicted with those of the United States, citing its connections with Russia and Iran, and expressed skepticism about India's ability to match China's power anytime soon.
