The line that divides the deep state and the anti-national is terrifyingly thin, the arrest of strategic affairs expert Ashley J. Tellis by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) suggests. True, the FBI has said that being charged does not mean he is guilty, but regardless of how the case turns out, Mr. Tellis has his reputation, built over a lifetime, smirched overnight.
This was in the making for several years, the FBI has told the court. Mr. Tellis was under surveillance since 2022, it turns out. To begin with, Mr. Tellis had access to a lot of state secrets of the U.S., and perhaps everyone who has such access might be under some surveillance. Actors in the hazy world of spycraft and secret wars of nation states are aware that they are all by themselves if something goes wrong. The U.S. Justice Department documents are sketchy about the alleged crime, but they sound to suggest that Mr. Tellis shared secret government files with Chinese contacts, and received something in return from them. Mr. Tellis has been released on bond, and his lawyers have told AFP that they would be “vigorously contesting” the charges against him.
