{"id":10961,"date":"2025-08-07T03:28:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/07\/u-s-soldier-accused-of-trying-to-give-russia-sensitive-army-tank-info-for-citizenship\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T03:28:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:28:03","slug":"u-s-soldier-accused-of-trying-to-give-russia-sensitive-army-tank-info-for-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/07\/u-s-soldier-accused-of-trying-to-give-russia-sensitive-army-tank-info-for-citizenship\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. soldier accused of trying to give Russia sensitive Army tank info for citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<p>Federal authorities have arrested an American soldier who allegedly tried to share classified information about the Army&#8217;s M1A2 Abrams tank with Russia, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/active-duty-soldier-arrested-and-charged-espionage-and-export-violations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Justice Department<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p>Taylor Adam Lee \u2014 a 22-year-old active-duty Army member stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas \u2014 was arrested Wednesday and charged under the Espionage Act with attempted transmission of national defense information to a foreign adversary, federal prosecutors said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/active-duty-soldier-arrested-and-charged-espionage-and-export-violations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">statement<\/a>. He was also charged under the Arms Export Control Act.<\/p>\n<p>The Justice Department claimed Lee &#8220;transmitted export-controlled technical information on the M1A2 Abrams Tank online and offered assistance to the Russian Federation.&#8221; Prosecutors accused Lee of trying to swap the information for Russian citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>Lee \u2014 who held a top secret security clearance \u2014 allegedly wrote online earlier this year, &#8220;the USA is not happy with me for trying to expose their weaknesses,&#8221; and, &#8220;At this point I&#8217;d even volunteer to assist the Russian federation when I&#8217;m there in any way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During a July in-person meeting, Lee allegedly handed an SD card with technical data and other information on Abrams tanks to a person who he &#8220;believed to be a representative of the Russian government.&#8221; He also allegedly discussed giving Russia a piece of hardware from the tank, and appeared to deliver the hardware to an El Paso storage unit last week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mission accomplished,&#8221; Lee messaged the person, the Justice Department said.<\/p>\n<p>A warrant for his arrest was filed in El Paso federal court on Tuesday. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-wdtx\/pr\/fort-bliss-soldier-arrested-charged-espionage-and-export-violations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">was arrested<\/a> and made his initial court appearance the following day. A criminal complaint did not appear to be filed in court as of Wednesday, and it&#8217;s unclear if Lee is represented by an attorney.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This arrest is an alarming reminder of the serious threat facing our U.S. Army,&#8221; Brig. Gen. Sean F. Stinchon, the commanding general of Army Counterintelligence Command, said in a statement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lee&#8217;s arrest comes as the military grapples with online espionage and leaking threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Chinese intelligence agents have tried to target U.S. service members online and entice them into offering up sensitive information in exchange for pay, a trend some counterintelligence officials call &#8220;virtual espionage,&#8221; <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/china-spying-efforts-us-service-members-social-media\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">CBS News<\/a><\/span> reported earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Separately, former Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/pentagon-leaker-jack-teixeira-sentencing\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">sentenced<\/a><\/span> to 15 years in prison last year for sharing classified documents about the Russia-Ukraine war on the messaging platform Discord. And a retired Army officer <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/david-slater-russia-ukraine-war-classified-information-guilty-plea\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">who worked as a civilian Air Force employee<\/a><\/span> pleaded guilty last month to sharing Russia-Ukraine war information on a dating app.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- data-recirc-source=\"queryly\" --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"component list recirculation component--type-recirculation \">\n<p><h3 class=\"component__title\">More from CBS News<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>    <!-- tags --><\/p>\n<div class=\"content-author\">\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/team\/joe-walsh\/\" class=\"content-author__name\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">Joe  Walsh<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"content-author__bio\">\n<div class=\"content-author__full-information\">\n<p class=\"content-author__text\">Joe Walsh is a senior editor for digital politics at CBS News. Joe previously covered breaking news for Forbes and local news in Boston.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal authorities have arrested an American soldier who allegedly tried to share classified information about the Army&#8217;s M1A2 Abrams tank with Russia, the Justice Department said. Taylor Adam Lee \u2014 a 22-year-old active-duty Army member stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas \u2014 was arrested Wednesday and charged under the Espionage Act with attempted transmission of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-political-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10963,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10961\/revisions\/10963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}