A long-time FBI agent has been charged with illegally obtaining and leaking sensitive FBI materials, according to court papers acquired by CBS News.
Johnathan Buma, who specialized in national security and terror matters, was freed on $100,000 bail and ordered to appear in court in Los Angeles.
According to criminal papers, Buma was detained while boarding an international aircraft at New York’s JFK airport. According to the Justice Department’s papers, Buma printed caches of FBI documents from an internal network. Nearly 130 files may have been hacked, according to FBI investigators. The government claims the papers were plainly designated as sensitive or safe, and Buma duplicated them in the hours leading up to his departure from the agency in October 2023.
According to the criminal papers, Buma used social media to publish portions from a book he was writing about his time with the agency, only days after stealing copies of the data. According to federal authorities, the book included information Buma got from the FBI on an investigation into a foreign nation’s weapons of mass destruction program.
Before leaving his work, Buma claimed to be a whistleblower and openly criticized the Trump administration throughout his first term. He also claimed before a Senate committee in 2023 that his spies were the first to notify the authorities of Hunter Biden’s suspected malfeasance in commercial transactions with an energy firm in Ukraine. They sent him data “concerning Hunter Biden’s escapades in Ukraine with Burisma and how he used his position as the vice president’s son to get a lucrative position.”
According to the court papers, Buma is also accused of storing screenshots of communications he sent to a confidential FBI source.
Investigators referred to Buma’s own book draft in court documents in New York’s United States District Court. In one passage, Buma identifies himself as “one of the nation’s top performing counterintelligence agents.”
Buma’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. No plea has been recorded in this case yet.
According to the Justice Department, Buma was a ticketed passenger on Monday’s departure international aircraft from JFK airport. He was apprehended by FBI agents around 10 p.m. Monday, before the aircraft left.
During his 15-year employment with the FBI, he worked from an Orange County, California, office of the FBI’s Los Angeles division. Buma worked on counterintelligence and counterproliferation issues.