Former DoD Linguist Sentenced to 23 Years in Prison for Providing Classified Information to Foreign Terrorist Organization

According to a Department of Justice press release from June 23, 2021, a Defense Department linguist was sentenced to 23 years in prison for delivering classified U.S. national security information to a foreign actor. She had pleaded guilty on March 26, 2021.

Mariam Taha Thompson, 62, admitted that she was sharing information with a Lebanese national who she believed had ties to Lebanese Hezbollah- a group that has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Thompson, who had a top-secret security clearance while working as a contract linguist at an overseas U.S. military facility, developed a romantic interest in a Lebanese national who is the unindicted co-conspirator in this case. The co-conspirator shared that they had ties with Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Lebanese Hezbollah, and wanted confidential information from Thompson related to U.S. national defense.

Acting U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips for the District of Columbia said of the crime, “The defendant’s decision to aid a foreign terrorist organization was a betrayal that endangered the lives of the very American men and women on the battlefield who had served beside her for more than a decade.”

Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division furthered, “Thompson’s sentence reflects the seriousness of her violation of the trust of the American people, of the human sources she jeopardized and of the troops who worked at her side as friends and colleagues. That Thompson passed our nation’s sensitive secrets to someone whom she knew had ties to Lebanese Hezbollah made her betrayal all the more serious. Thompson’s sentence should stand as a clear warning to all clearance holders that violations of their oath to this country will not be taken lightly, especially when they put lives at risk.”

According to court documents, in December of 2019, the U.S. launched a series of airstrikes in Iraq targeting Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed foreign terrorist organization. On January 3, 2020, these airstrikes resulted in the death of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qasem Suleimani, as well as the founder of Kata’ib Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

After these attacks, Thompson’s Lebanese co-conspirator began asking her to reveal classified information about who facilitated the attack on Suleimani including real names, personal identification data, background information and photographs. Thompson used several methods to relay this information to her co-conspirator and when she was finally arrested in February of 2020, she had disclosed the identities of at least eight clandestine human assets; at least 10 U.S. targets; and multiple tactics, techniques and procedures used by the U.S.

Assistant Director in Charge Steven M. D’Antuono of the FBI Washington Field Office stated, “Today’s significant sentencing shows the dedicated work of the FBI, the U.S. Intelligence Community and our global partners to work swiftly and diligently to safeguard our national security information and hold accountable those who break our nation’s trust."