And The Mystery Country? Hello, Israel!
"Although most spy cases don't involve peanut butter and Band-Aids [within which they hid data cards], the facts alleged follow a familiar pattern: Insider within the U.S. government approaches a foreign power to sell U.S. secrets for money, is compromised despite their best efforts at tradecraft, and -- to their surprise -- is subsequently arrested.""What's striking to me, though, is that a foreign government not only informed the FBI about its receipt of sensitive U.S. military technology with potential benefit to that government's defence capabilities, but also appears to have actively cooperated in cultivating a relationship of trust between the FBI and the alleged U.S. spies designed to facilitate their identification and arrest."David Laufman, former U.S. senior Justice Department official"He wasn't talkative. Just a friendly, normal guy.""I worked in the State Department for 37 years. You just don't even think about anything like that.""I flew around the world with top secret documents -- he probably would've liked to have those!"Jerry LaFleur, neighbour, retired former director, U.S. Diplomatic Courier Service"Hearing that one of my teachers is involved in something like that? That's just insane.""I only really ever saw her as an English teacher. I didn't think she could do something -- or possibly do something -- like that."Malin Deutsch, graduate, Key School
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| Booking photos released Oct. 9, 2021, by the West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority show Jonathan Toebbe and his wife, Diana Toebbe. (West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority via AP) (AP) |
Key School, a private institution, was where Diana Toebbe taught for years, a purportedly brilliant teacher; meticulous, introducing students to the prospect of thinking through new and unusual ways of solving problems. She has been indefinitely suspended. If found guilty as charged, alongside her equally brilliant husband, a U.S. Navy nuclear engineer, she could be spending the rest of her life in prison for espionage. Both Jonathan and Diane Toebbe of Annapolis are charged with violating the Atomic Energy Act under which it is a crime to share "restricted data".
Should they be convicted of violating the Atomic Energy Act through the sharing of "restricted data" on nuclear propulsion systems for Virginia-class submarines -- cutting-edge cruise-missile carriers with a price tag of $3 billion for each built vessel -- it may be life in prison for them. Considered flight risks, both husband and wife must remain in custody, while at a scheduled detention hearing prosecutors will ask the presiding judge to keep them in jail until their trial takes place.
The country to which they purportedly sold state secret material of the highest classification of its kind has not been divulged. Another mystery is why they would embark on such a venture to begin with. Money is usually the draw. Such highly intelligent individuals whose exceptional experiences as professionals in the military and in academia, with salaries to match, living in a prestigious area of the nation would want for nothing. What makes people do these things ... betraying their country ... for what?
What news has come out is perplexing enough; their attempts to disguise the clandestine steps they took to pass on the classified data, along with the unusual degree of cooperation and assistance to the FBI of the foreign country they thought they were dealing with, leading to their arrest. It was the foreign country that tipped off the FBI. Jonathan Toebbe joined the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineer in Maryland, serving for five years on active duty as a Navy nuclear engineering officer at the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program in Arlington, Virginia.
Overseeing the design, operation and maintenance of close to a hundred nuclear reactors throughout the Navy, this is quite the distinguished operation, with over 60 aircraft carriers and submarines in the fleet or under construction using nuclear energy instead of deriving power from conventional gas turbines. He continued his work after leaving the Navy, as a civilian at the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, a common work trajectory for those in the military who leave, then take up where they left off, as civilians in employment.
"There's a reason people become traitors, and usually it's because they get screwed by the military or they are in duress, needing money really, really badly. I didn't know of any of those factors with him, so I don't know why he would choose to do such a thing. But it's terrible", explained Lee Cohen, a corporate recruiter specializing in ushering military officers to transition to the private sector.
Both husband and wife attended Emory University in Atlanta where he earned an undergraduate degree in math and physics and a master's degree in physics, and where his wife was a doctoral student in anthropology. They will now go down in American history as pariahs of the first order. Several days before he handed over secret classified data to the FBI agent posing as a contact from the foreign government, Jonathan Toebbe's top-secret security clearance had been renewed.
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| In this 2004 photo, the USS Virginia returns to Connecticut after sea trials. A Navy nuclear engineer is been charged with trying to pass information about the design of nuclear-powered submarines to someone he thought was a representative of a foreign government, the Justice Department said. (Jack Sauer/AP) |
Labels: Atomic Energy Act, Hello Jonathan Pollard, Jonathan and Diane Toebbe, Security Clearance, United States
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 14, 2021
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