Source who leaked info to CNBC reporter is arrested

A U.S. counterterrorism analyst was arrested Wednesday at the Defense Intelligence Agency where he worked and charged with leaking classified information to two journalists for NBC and CNBC, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Aruna Viswanatha, Dustin Volz and Byron Tau of The Journal reported, “Mr. Frese has been charged with two counts of willful transmission of national defense information, a felony charge that carries the possibility of a lengthy prison term.”The journalists aren’t named in the indictment, but they are identifiable as Amanda Macias, a reporter for CNBC, and Courtney Kube, a reporter for NBC. Public tweets cited in the court filings correspond to tweets sent by Ms. Macias and Ms. Kube in July.

“Neither journalist immediately responded to requests for comment, nor did NBC or CNBC. Ms. Kube is a veteran reporter who covers national security and the military, while Ms. Macias has been with CNBC’s Washington bureau, where she covers the Pentagon, since 2018.”

Read more here. The story also disclosed that the analyst and the CNBC reporter were engaged in a romantic relationship.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.