A superseding indictment has been levied against Ashley J. Tellis who was the subject of a criminal complaint in October 2025. Neither the indictment nor the criminal complaint details the total duration of the relationship between Ashley J. Tellis and Chinese officials, which dated from at least 2022. Tellis served as a highly respected advisor to the United States government, holding positions that afforded him the highest levels of national security access. The current allegations suggest he fundamentally violated his oath of loyalty by choosing to purloin thousands of pages of classified government documents for his own personal use and, by extension, the interests of the People’s Republic of China.
The “Legacy Insider” Profile
This case highlights how a legacy insider, with vast and authorized access, opted to compromise himself. At the time of his arrest in October 2025, Ashley J. Tellis leveraged his 24-year tenure to maintain an expansive footprint across the national security establishment. This privileged access, common among those with deep domain expertise, enabled him to retain high-level security clearances and a persistent ‘need to know.’ It was this access that he allegedly exploited, setting the stage for the calculated methods he used to circumvent security protocols.:
- Department of State (DOS): Employed since 2001, he was serving as an unpaid Senior Advisor at the time of the breach.
- Department of Defense (DOD): He served as a contractor in the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), where he was a recognized subject matter expert on South Asian strategic affairs.
- Carnegie Endowment: Simultaneously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Modus Operandi: Calculated Evasion
The investigative evidence detailed in the FBI’s criminal complaint highlights a very rudimentary modus operandi designed to defeat digital and physical security controls:
Digital Obfuscation
While working at the State Department, Tellis allegedly accessed classified tactical manuals on secure “Classnet” systems and renamed them to benign titles like “Econ Reform” to bypass digital system monitors.
Extraction Tradecraft
He utilized print settings to format documents as “multiple pages per sheet,” significantly reducing the physical volume of the stolen material before deleting the renamed digital files to eliminate his forensic trail.
Physical Concealment
Inside the DoD’s Office of Net Assessment, Tellis was observed on video surveillance lifting the pages of a yellow notepad and inserting classified documents between them to conceal them inside his briefcase as he departed the facility.
The China Nexus
What we do know is that the FBI knew of Tellis and his connection to Chinese officials as of at least September 2022. It was at that time that FBI surveillance observed Tellis at a dinner in Fairfax, Virginia. At this dinner Tellis arrived with a manila envelope and left without it. Fast forward to September 2025 and the FBI again observed Tellis receiving a “red gift bag” from PRC officials.
The criminal complaint describes conversations between Tellis and PRC officials that centered on Irania-Chinese relations, regional nuclear projections, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, all topics closely aligned with the intelligence he was allegedly exfiltrating.
The indictment of Tellis
Investigators determined that Tellis had taken thousands of classified documents, as evidence by the search of his residence and the video surveillance of his actions within government premises. On February 12, a superseding indictment was filed, formalizing 11 counts of Willful Retention of National Defense Information (18 U.S.C. § 793(e)). These counts reflect the extensive range of national security information unlawfully retained, with eight involving Top Secret/SCI documents, which included assessments of Chinese nuclear capabilities and U.S. military facility vulnerabilities. For each count, Tellis faces up to 10 years in prison.
