NEW YORK (AP) — An FBI agent who publicly accused the company of a pro-Trump bias has been arrested and charged with disclosing confidential data after authorities say he included delicate materials about investigations and informants right into a draft of his memoir.
Johnathan Buma, who claimed in 2023 that the FBI went after President Joe Biden’s son Hunter whereas stifling his personal investigation of President Donald Trump’s ally Rudy Giuliani, was arrested Monday night at Kennedy Airport in New York as he was about to board a flight in a foreign country, authorities mentioned.
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Within the draft of his e-book, Buma described himself as “probably the most vital whistleblower in FBI historical past.”
Federal prosecutors in California, the place Buma had labored as a counterintelligence and counterproliferation agent, charged him on Tuesday with a single rely of disclosure of confidential data. The cost is punishable by as much as one 12 months in jail.
Buma submitted a letter of resignation Sunday, in line with an affidavit ready by an FBI agent concerned within the investigation. The probe into Buma’s conduct started properly earlier than Trump took workplace for his second time period. The FBI searched Buma’s dwelling in November 2023, when Biden was in workplace.
Messages searching for remark had been left with Buma’s lawyer.
After submitting a whistleblower grievance and testifying earlier than Congress, the court docket affidavit mentioned Buma went to his FBI workplace in Orange County, California, in October 2023 and printed copies of about 130 confidential recordsdata. The recordsdata included summaries of data offered by confidential informants, the identification of an informant and screenshots of textual content messages he exchanged with an informant, the affidavit mentioned.
A few of that data additionally appeared in a draft of Buma’s e-book, the affidavit mentioned.
After emailing his bosses that he was taking an unpaid depart of absence, Buma posted excerpts of the draft on social media and emailed copies to numerous folks, a few of whom had been serving to him negotiate a publishing deal, in line with the affidavit. Amongst different issues, the e-book contained details about an FBI investigation right into a international nation’s weapons of mass destruction program, the affidavit mentioned.
