Ex-CIA Agent Arrested Over Leak to Times Reporter

A former CIA officer has been arrested and charged with leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter. Jeffrey Sterling, 43, was nabbed yesterday, and is being held through the weekend because the government has declared him dangerous. The indictment didn’t say what he’d leaked, but connecting the dots, the AP is confident the case revolves around leaks used in James Risen’s 2006 book State of War, which covered the CIA’s espionage campaign against Iran.

Sterling, 43, used to man the Iranian desk at the CIA, handling Iranian spies who defected to the US. In Risen’s book, he allegedly revealed a 2004 “espionage disaster” in which a spy had accidentally exposed the CIA’s entire network in Iran. The indictment says Sterling revealed that info to get back at the CIA, which he once unsuccessfully sued for racial discrimination. (More espionage stories.)