Spy Betrayed U.S. to Work for Iran, Charges Say – The New …
WASHINGTON Inside the government, some officials called her Wayward Storm.
Her real name was Monica Elfriede Witt, an exemplary Air Force counterintelligence agent who had studied Persian and carried out covert missions in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
But by mid-2013, Ms. Witt had become disillusioned with the government why, exactly, remains a mystery and had left the military. Thoughts of betrayal consumed her, federal prosecutors now say, until she finally acted on them at the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, where they say she told all.
They are going to get back to me on if they can help me very soon before I leave, Ms. Witt wrote on June 30, 2013, to an Iranian-American reporter working on behalf of the Iranian intelligence services, according to a criminal indictment.
That indictment was made public on Wednesday as the Justice Department accused Ms. Witt, 39, of defecting to Iran in August 2013 to work with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in betrayal of the United States.
Ms. Witt has been charged with two counts of espionage and other crimes for what prosecutors said was her help to the Iranian government with spearfishing attempts that targeted her former colleagues. Investigators also said she provided the Iranians with secret details about American intelligence operations. She is believed to still be in Iran.
Ms. Witts case is among several in recent years in which prosecutors say a foreign country, particularly China, has tried to recruit former American military or intelligence officials.
The case unsealed today underscores the dangers to our intelligence professionals and the lengths our adversaries will go to identify them, expose them, target them, and, in a few rare cases, ultimately turn them against the nation they swore to protect, John C. Demers, the head of the national security division of the Justice Department, said in a statement.
The authorities did not say whether Ms. Witt caused any damage to American intelligence operations, but any programs she gained access to while in the Air Force would probably have been considered compromised. She also worked closely with the F.B.I. on counterintelligence matters, and she knew the identities of Iranian informants whom the American intelligence agencies were using.
Ms. Witt was born in El Paso. She entered the Air Force in 1997 as part of the Office of Special Investigations, which conducts counterintelligence inquiries in the United States and overseas. She studied Persian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., and went on to focus on collecting the intercepted communications of foreign adversaries.
She left active duty with the Air Force in 2008 but spent another two years working as a contractor. She helped manage the same highly classified program involving informants working against Iran.
A person familiar with her case said she had grown disgruntled while working for the Air Force and at some point had become enamored with Persian culture and converted to Islam. In early 2012, she traveled to Iran to attend a conference called Hollywoodism. Prosecutors said the conference is sponsored by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite Iranian paramilitary force, and is intended to promote anti-American propaganda.
While at the conference, she agreed to appear in at least one video in which she was identified as a veteran and made statements that were critical of the United States. The videos were broadcast by Iranian news outlets.
After her return to the United States, the F.B.I. paid a visit to Ms. Witt, the indictment said, and delivered a warning: Iranian intelligence services were trying to recruit her. She told the F.B.I. agents she would never reveal the work she did for the Air Force.
The Iranians continued to target Ms. Witt, according to the indictment. In June 2012, an American-Iranian journalist, Marzieh Hashemi, came to the United States and hired Ms. Witt to work on an anti-American film.
In 2013, Ms. Witt traveled to Iran again for a Hollywoodism conference and met with members of the Revolutionary Guard and expressed views critical of the United States. She also stated her desire to immigrate to Iran, prosecutors said.
The indictment said she communicated frequently with Ms. Hashemi, who is identified as Individual A. She told Ms. Hashemi the work she had done for the Air Force was evil. She also talked about exposing a secret program and do like Snowden, a reference to Edward J. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who stole sensitive documents and gave them to journalists.
Ms. Witt eventually traveled to Afghanistan to teach English, and while there made contact with the Iranians. But she became frustrated when the Iranians treated her with suspicion. She talked about going to Russia where Mr. Snowden was living.
I think I can slip into Russia quietly if they help me and then I can contact wikileaks from there without disclosing my location, she wrote to Ms. Hashemi.
Apparently the Iranians became alarmed and moved quickly to make sure that did not happen, giving her money to travel to Iran. They are giving me money to head to Dubai, she said in a message to Ms. Hashemi. I will wait to get the approval; there and get it from the embassy in Dubai. They are so kind even taking me to the airport.
Ms. Witt appears to have been in Tajikistan when she wrote the email.
Prosecutors described how Ms. Witt sent Ms. Hashemi an email in August 2013 titled: My Bio and Job History. It included her discharge papers from the military. Ms. Hashemi forwarded them to an email address associated with Iran.
Prosecutors accused Ms. Witt of defecting to Iran that month and working with the Revolutionary Guard to betray her country. The paramilitary group is known to carry out assassinations and cyberattacks around the world and has been penalized by the United States government.
When she arrived in Iran, officials provided her with housing and computer equipment. Prosecutors said that she searched Facebook accounts for Americans and created target packages for Iran against American counterintelligence officials.
In late 2014, prosecutors said, Iranians working on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard began targeting Ms. Witts former colleagues using a fake Yahoo email address and Facebook account. Prosecutors said the Iranians tried to put malware on the computers of the Americans to capture their keystrokes, gain access to web cameras and monitor their activity.
A former senior administration official said that Ms. Witt was also involved in the questioning by Iran of 10 American sailors who were captured in 2016 patrolling in Iranian waters. The sailors were released after about 15 hours.
Former officials said that Ms. Witt maintained a low profile as the criminal case against her moved forward, with a grand jury in Washington recently interviewing at least one witness: Ms. Hashemi, the journalist. Ms. Hashemi was born as Melanie Franklin in Louisiana and moved to Iran more than a decade ago after converting to Islam. She is now a prominent reporter for Irans English-language Press TV.
Ms. Hashemi was arrested in St. Louis while on a trip to the United States to visit relatives and brought to Washington. Officials later disclosed she was a material witness in an unspecified criminal case, the details of which were closely held until Wednesday. She was later released.
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Spy Betrayed U.S. to Work for Iran, Charges Say - The New ...