The defendant, Dale Britt Bendler, used his position as a post-retirement CIA contractor to lobby for foreign nationals who paid him thousands of dollars.
WASHINGTON—A former intelligence officer and contractor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on April 23 pleaded guilty to charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent and mishandling classified information, according to a statement by the Department of Justice.
Dale Britt Bendler, aged 68, is a former CIA intelligence officer who spent 30 years working for the agency and retired as a career member of the Senior Intelligence Service in 2014.
Afterward, he became a private full-time contractor to the CIA with the highest level of security clearance.
While a contractor, he used his position on behalf of unnamed foreign clients to quash a foreign embezzlement investigation into one client and secure a visa to the United States for another.
In doing so, Bendler downloaded classified information from the CIA’s computer systems, disclosed it to unauthorized persons, and lied to both the CIA and the FBI, which were investigating him.
Bendler’s contract and security clearance were terminated in 2020.
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As part of the plea agreement, Bendler will plead guilty to two criminal felonies for acting as a foreign agent while a public official and for unauthorized retention of classified information.
He will forfeit $85,000 and faces a maximum prison sentence of seven years.
“In exchange for his unauthorized outside activities, Bendler was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the statement said.
“During the course of Bendler’s unauthorized lobbying and public relations activities, Bendler also abused his access to CIA resources and personnel.”
The identities of Bendler’s lobbying clients were not disclosed, nor was the country of their nationality.
It is also unclear as to what classified material was compromised by Bendler, though the statement indicated the material was classified at the level of “Secret” with a control against dissemination to foreign nationals.
Though Bendler is a resident of Miami, Florida, the case was handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The office and its district court are high-profile venues for national security and international terrorism-related legal cases, given that many national security-related agencies such as the Department of Defense and the CIA are located in the district.
Original News Source Link – Epoch Times
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