A former cybersecurity specialist at the Defense Intelligence Agency whose work involved monitoring insider threats in the U.S. government admitted in federal court Wednesday that he became one himself, attempting to trade classified information for citizenship in a friendly country because of disagreements with the Trump administration.
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Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 29, pleaded guilty to one count of delivering defense information to aid a foreign government, an Espionage Act offense. He did not successfully establish contact with the foreign nation, but court documents say he sent an email offering to provide classified records.
The country has not been identified in public court filings. Two people familiar with the investigation previously told The Washington Post it was Germany. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing case.
U.S. officials were tipped off to Vilas Laatsch’s outreach in March 2025. An FBI agent posing as an official from the friendly foreign country communicated with Vilas Laatsch over several weeks, arranging for him to drop off classified materials in a park outside D.C., in Arlington County, Virginia, according to court records.
“I do not agree or align with the values of this administration and intend to act to support the values that the United States at one time stood for,” Vilas Laatsch wrote in one message, according to an FBI affidavit. “To this end, I am willing to share classified information that I have access to, which are completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation.”
Vilas Laatsch joined the civilian workforce of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is part of the Defense Department, in 2019 and obtained a top-secret security clearance. The Alexandria, Virginia, resident worked with the agency’s insider threat division, helping officials monitor the computer activities of U.S. government employees under investigation, according to court records. He graduated from Florida Polytechnic University with a degree in cybersecurity in 2018.
Surveillance video of Vilas Laatsch’s workstation at a facility in the Washington area showed how the IT specialist accessed classified information on his screen, transcribed it onto a notepad, then placed the handwritten pages in his socks before leaving work for the day, according to court records.
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“It will not be easy for them, for example, to open a case on me without my knowledge since my permissions to see that would need to be changed and I’d notice,” he told the undercover FBI agent in one message quoted in the charging documents, boasting that he knew how to avoid the “stupid mistakes” that had bedeviled other federal employees under investigation.
Prosecutors said that in May 2025, after weeks of discussions, Vilas Laatsch dropped off a thumb drive at an Arlington County park with nine typed documents replicating the classified records he had accessed. The FBI retrieved the drive. The agencies where those records originated said that eight of them were designated top secret, one of which “reflected sensitive methods of intelligence collection, intelligence related to foreign military exercises, and analysis of the impact of those military exercises.”
A second document drop was arranged for later that month, at which point Vilas Laatsch was arrested, court records state.
In court Wednesday, Vilas Laatsch gave only brief responses to the judge’s questions, confirming that he understood he was waiving his rights to remain silent and to have a jury trial.
U.S. District Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. scheduled sentencing for Jan. 27 in Alexandria federal court. Although the offense carries a maximum sentence of death or life imprisonment, Alston said at the plea hearing Wednesday that prosecutors do not plan to seek those “draconian” sentences.
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