‘Red gift bag’: US national security expert arrested over classified documents

Ashley Tellis, a prominent Indian-American national security expert and long-time US adviser, has been accused of hoarding classified documents and repeatedly meeting Chinese officials, stirring concern over possible Beijing ties and jolting Washington’s foreign policy circles.

An affidavit dated October 13 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia said more than a thousand pages of classified materials – several marked “Top Secret” and “Secret” – were recovered from various parts of Tellis’s Virginia home, including three trash bags, during a Federal Bureau of Investigation search over the weekend.

The Justice Department alleges that Tellis repeatedly removed highly classified materials from secure government facilities and stored them unsecured at his residence just outside Washington.

A State Department official confirmed to the Post that Tellis, a “consultant” with the department, was arrested on Saturday. Court documents revealed that on the day of the search, Tellis and his family were scheduled to fly to Rome.

China’s embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tellis, an India-born naturalised US citizen, has been a prominent figure in Washington’s foreign policy establishment for decades.