Tipsheet

Pentagon Leaker Charged for Possessing Classified Documents on the Venezuela Raid

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  January 16, 2026 12:00 PM

A Pentagon contractor has been arrested for leaking and taking classified information on the raid that saw Venezuela's socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro captured. He was also in possession of sensitive materials about a foreign country. 

Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones will remain in custody, according to U.S. District Chief Judge George Levi Russell III after his defense attorneys said they weren’t “prepared to move forward” with the hearing.

From the New York Post:

The IT specialist and former US Navy service member was identified as an alleged leaker in a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday, following an FBI raid on the home of a Washington Post reporter who has promoted herself as “the federal government whisperer.”

Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson’s home in suburban Alexandria, Va., was searched by the FBI as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of retaining national defense information unlawfully, sources told her outlet.

"Officials have not said whether Perez-Lugones had in fact leaked information to Natanson," they wrote.

Perez-Lugones has remained in custody since Jan. 8, when federal agents carried out a search warrant at his home in Laurel, Maryland, uncovering “multiple documents that were marked SECRET.” He could face up to 10 years in federal prison.

More from the NY Post:

As a systems engineer at a government contractor in Maryland, Perez-Lugones holds a top-secret security clearance and allegedly printed out screenshots of “a classified intelligence report related to a foreign country” on Oct. 28, 2025, an FBI special agent wrote in an affidavit appended to the complaint.

The government contractor also took notes on a yellow legal pad that he stashed in a black bag and took home between Jan. 5 and 7, alleged the affidavit.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an interview:

The First Amendment is a bedrock principle, but this isn't about that. This is about classified material that could jeopardize lives. And this guy, this IT guy, that worked for [the] Department of War, and Pete Hegseth has been amazing, he's been up against a lot with these people, this guy, he was a contractor, and IT contractor who had classified information, is charged now with leaking classified information involving a foreign adversary. He could jeopardize the lives, the saftey of our men and women in the military. So today it's been reported that the great men and women of the FBI have executed a search warrant at the direction of Kash Patel and my office, on the reporter's home, seizing the devices that contain classified material regarding our foreign adversaries. And that's what we're looking into now. But the guy, the guy from the IT department, is in jail. 

"President Trump has made it very clear he will not jeopardize the men and women in our military, and you will not leak classified information," she added.