Ashley Tellis

Ashley Tellis is an India and South Asia expert who serves as an unpaid senior advisor at the State Department, a contractor at the Pentagon, and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He was charged by criminal complaint with the unlawful retention of national defense information.

Court documents say federal agents found more than 1,000 pages of documents with classified markings in Tellis' Virginia home.

including in three black trash bags in a storage room.

The criminal complaint also says Tellis has met at least five times since 2022 with Chinese government officials at Virginia restaurants, but it does not allege that he provided them with any classified materials.

Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington.