A Marine Corps veteran has been indicted on charges connected to providing secret U.S. defense information to a person believed to be in China.
Seth Chambers, 35, of Texas County, Missouri, pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Missouri to two counts of willful transmission of national defense information, the Department of Justice said in a news release. If convicted, Chambers faces up to 10 years in federal prison on each count.
Chambers entered his plea before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Willie J. Epps Jr.
The case is scheduled for trial on Aug. 10, according to court records.
Chambers served as a Marine Corps intelligence analyst from April 2011 to March 2021 before working as an analyst for a U.S. government contractor in Erbil, Iraq, from November 2021 to January 2023, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors said Chambers held a security clearance that let him access classified material up to the top-secret level.
According to court documents, Chambers allegedly copied classified information, removed it from a secure site, incorporated it into a report, and transmitted the material electronically.
On Dec. 10, 2022, Chambers allegedly sent a white paper containing excerpts from classified U.S. government documents to a person in Maryland who was not authorized to receive it. A second document containing similar excerpts was allegedly transmitted on April 20, 2023, to someone believed to be in China.
The indictment said the documents contained information classified at the secret level and that Chambers knew the material related to national defense and he was not authorized to transmit it.
Chambers had received training on handling classified information and had signed nondisclosure agreements acknowledging that unauthorized disclosure could harm U.S. national security, according to the indictment.
Newsmax has contacted the Department of Justice and Chambers' attorney, federal public defender Ian Lewis, for comment.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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