Pentagon linguist pleads guilty to exposing U.S. intelligence sources to Hezbollah

A linguist for the Department of Defense pleaded guilty on Friday to passing classified information about U.S. human intelligence sources to an individual with ties to Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organization, the Department of Justice said. Mariam Taha Thompson began sending the information after the U.S. killed Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military commander, in an airstrike in early 2020, according to court documents. 

Thompson, who held a top secret security clearance, had been stationed at a Special Operations Task Force facility in Iraq from mid-December 2019 until her arrest a few months later.  Years before she began passing classified information, she was introduced to a Lebanese national on social media via a family member, according to the statement of facts that she agreed to as part of her plea. Though she never met the man in person, the man expressed interest in marrying her and having her move to Lebanon, the court documents said. The two communicated frequently from 2017 to 2020.