Who is Ashley Tellis?
Tellis has been a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a leading Washington think tank, which said on Wednesday that he has been put on administrative leave.
Born in Mumbai and educated at the University of Chicago, Tellis has been a prolific writer and adviser on defence and Asia policy.
He helped negotiate the Bush administration’s civil nuclear cooperation deal with India, a landmark step to closer relations between the world’s two largest democracies.
Previously, Tellis was commissioned into the US Foreign Service and served as senior adviser to the ambassador at the US Embassy in New Delhi. He also served on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to then-President Bush and senior director for strategic planning and Southwest Asia.
But Tellis in recent years has emerged as a leading contrarian in Washington about India, saying that New Delhi’s interests were not aligned on a host of issues including Ukraine.
The charges against Tellis?
A criminal affidavit made public on Tuesday said Tellis entered the US State Department late on September 25 and appeared to print from a secret document on US Air Force techniques. It alleged that he met repeatedly with Chinese officials at a restaurant in Fairfax, Virginia, and that at one dinner he appeared to leave behind a manila envelope.
The US Justice Department said the charges concern the improper handling of classified material, not the meetings.
An FBI agent stated that a search of Tellis’s home uncovered more than 1,000 pages of top-secret and secret documents.
The affidavit cites several instances in the past month in which Tellis allegedly printed or asked a colleague to print classified material on topics including US military aircraft capabilities.
Surveillance footage showed him leaving the State and Defence Departments on multiple occasions with a briefcase believed to contain the printed papers, according to court documents.
It also details several meetings between Tellis and Chinese government officials in recent years. At one 2022 dinner, Tellis reportedly arrived with a manila folder while the officials brought a gift bag.
The affidavit noted that he did not appear to have the folder when he left the restaurant but did not accuse him of sharing any classified information.
