Indian-origin US advisor Ashley Tellis held for keeping classified documents

Ashley Tellis, a prominent India-born American foreign policy expert, has been arrested in the United States on charges of unlawfully retaining classified national defence documents and holding unauthorised meetings with Chinese officials.

Tellis, 64, a naturalised US citizen and senior figure in Washington’s strategic community, was charged on 13 October in a Virginia district court under federal laws governing the handling of national defence information. He is widely regarded as one of America’s leading authorities on India and played a pivotal role in shaping the India–US civil nuclear deal during the mid-2000s.

According to court filings, federal investigators discovered more than 1,000 pages of documents marked Top Secret or Secret at Tellis’s residence in Vienna, Virginia, during a court-authorised search conducted on 11 October. The materials were allegedly stored in locked cabinets, on a desk, and in three large rubbish bags inside an unfinished basement storage room.

Tellis, who has held Top Secret security clearance with access to sensitive compartmented information, was serving as an unpaid senior adviser at the US State Department and as a contractor with the Department of Defence’s Office of Net Assessment at the time of his arrest. He also holds a senior fellowship at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

An FBI affidavit stated that surveillance footage from 25 September showed Tellis accessing classified computer systems at the State Department’s Harry S Truman Building.

Tellis allegedly printed hundreds of pages of classified material, including a 1,288-page document related to US Air Force tactics, renaming the file “Econ Reform” before printing and subsequently deleting it.

Additional footage from 10 October, recorded inside a secure compartmented information facility at the Mark Center in Alexandria, purportedly captured Tellis concealing classified papers inside notepads, placing them into a leather briefcase, and leaving the building.

The affidavit also detailed a series of meetings between Tellis and Chinese government representatives at restaurants in Fairfax, Virginia, between September 2022 and September 2025. During one such meeting on 15 September 2022, he was observed carrying a manila envelope that was not seen when he departed. The individuals were reportedly overheard discussing topics such as Iranian–Chinese relations and US–Pakistan ties.

On the day investigators executed the search warrant, Tellis was scheduled to travel to Rome with his family later that evening for professional commitments.

The US Department of Justice has not yet commented publicly on the case, which has sent shockwaves through Washington’s foreign policy establishment given Tellis’s longstanding reputation as an influential strategist on South Asian affairs.

With Agency Inputs