Tellis' lawyers say he will contest spy charges

TOI correspondent from Washington: Attorneys for Ashley Tellis, the India-born US think-tank scholar accused of unlawful possession of classified material, with alleged intent to transfer it to Chinese officials, have said they will be vigorously contesting espionage charges against him. The pushback came even as the US Justice Department maintained the case represents a “grave risk to the safety and security” of Americans and indicated it intended to prosecute Tellis. “At the next court hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday and in our related filings on Monday, we will be vigorously contesting the allegations brought against him, specifically any insinuation of his operating on behalf of a foreign adversary,” Tellis’ attorneys Deborah Curtis and John Nassikas said in a statement to the local media, as the case roiled the US-India strategic affairs community where the analyst was a familiar figure.Tellis appeared in court on Tuesday and was ordered detained pending a hearing on October 21, when he is expected to face charges under 8 U.S.C. § 793(e) a section of the Espionage Act of 1917 relating to unlawful possession of classified material. Section 793(e) essentially targets individuals who are not authorized to have national defense information in the first place, but who then deliberately disclose it to someone else who is also unauthorized, or who refuse to give it back to the government. The possessor must have reason to believe the information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation. Conviction results in a maximum of ten years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.The case will come up outside Washington DC in the Eastern District court in Virginia, which is itself in turmoil after the Trump administration fired US attorney Erik Siebert for purportedly declining to bring charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both the subject of the President’s ire for what he sees as their victimisation of him when he was out of office.The Trump Justice Department replaced him with Lindsay Halligan, the President’s handpicked choice, amid disquiet in legal circles that she has no prosecutorial experience for a court often referred to as the “rocket docket” for its fast processing of legal cases.Halligan, however, indicated she is ready to proceed with the case against Tellis. “We are fully focused on protecting the American people from all threats, foreign and domestic. The charges as alleged in this case represent a grave risk to the safety and security of our citizens. The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served,” she said in a statement. Meanwhile, Washington, which the joke goes has more think-tank than many countries have tanks, continued to be mystified by the charges against a respected scholar whose writing was infused with advancing American primacy against a rising China. In fact, in recent months, Tellis had riled many India partisans by arguing that New Delhi was making a mistake by pursuing a path of what it calls strategic autonomy and multi-alignment, while urging it to align more firmly with the US to meet the challenge both nations faced from China.