State Dept. advisor charged with amassing top secret files, passing envelopes to Chinese officials - National & International News -

Former Bush advisor charged with amassing top secret files, accused of trading secrets to China

Israel holds up aid into Gaza over delay in returning deceased hostages.

Former Bush advisor charged with amassing top secret files, meeting with Chinese officials

The Department of Justice has arrested a former national security advisor to President George W. Bush and charged him with unlawful retention of national security information. Ashley Tellis, an Indian-American born to a Christian family in Mumbai, is widely regarded as an expert on US-India relations. He still holds positions at both the State Department and Department of War, as well prestigious positions in Washington policy think tanks.

The FBI says a raid of Tellis’ home turned up thousands of pages of top secret documents. He is also accused of having met with Chinese officials in the US on several occasions since 2022. During one of these meetings, the DOJ says Tellis entered with a manila envelope which he exchanged for a red gift bag brought by the Chinese official.

The DOJ alleges that as recently as last month, Tellis obtained secret documents from both a Department of War facility and the State Department headquarters. In one case he had a colleague print off several documents for him. In another case he accessed a 1200-page document on US Air Force tactics, re-titled the document “Econ Reform” before printing off a portion it.

If convicted of all counts against him, Tellis faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Tellis has denied the charges, particularly the implication that he may have passed US national security secrets to a foreign adversary.

Israel holds up aid into Gaza over delay in returning deceased hostages

Following the recent Gaza ceasefire agreement, Hamas committed to returning 20 living and 28 deceased hostages. As of now, they have only returned remains from 9 deceased hostages. Israeli officials and hostage families have expressed anger over this and demanded that the ceasefire mediators and the Israeli government pressure Hamas to turn over more bodies. However, Hamas said today that they have turned over all the bodies they currently have access to. Many of the bodies are buried under tons of rubble from Israeli bombs, along with over 10,000 Palestinians. Others are likely to be deep underground in collapsed tunnels.

In response to the delay, Israeli officials announced they would severely cut back the number aid trucks they are allowing into the Gaza Strip each day, arguing that Hamas is in breach of the agreement. Purposefully restricting civilian aid in this way amounts to collective punishment, which is a violation of international law. After making this threat, Israeli officials later walked it back. However, reporters on the ground say that only about 100 aid trucks entered Gaza today, far short of the 600 daily trucks required by the ceasefire agreement.

US officials have said they do not believe that Hamas has violated the ceasefire agreement. Negotiators, mediators and even Israeli officials knew of the practical challenges of recovering these remains. There are already plans for an international task force to aid in recovery of remains, which could take weeks if not months.

Meanwhile, Israel has up to this point returned 120 bodies of Palestinians. Some of these were people killed by Israel’s military in Gaza and others are bodies of people held prisoner (or hostage) in Israel without charge who died in Israeli custody. Many of the bodies show signs of various kinds of torture and summary execution, including being crushed under Israeli tanks.