US accuses foreign policy expert Ashley Tellis of illegally keeping secret documents

Tellis born in India and now a naturalised US citizen who has served as an adviser to the State department since 2001, was charged on October 13 in a Virginia district court with violating federal law governing the retention of national defence information, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit filed by the FBI.

The 64-year-old is widely considered one of America’s most prominent experts on India and played a key role in the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal talks in the mid-2000s.

Federal investigators found more than 1,000 pages of documents marked top secret or secret at Tellis’s home in Vienna, Virginia, during a court-authorised search on October 11, according to the affidavit by an FBI special agent. The classified materials were discovered in locked filing cabinets in a basement office, on a desk and in three large black rubbish bags in an unfinished storage room, the document states.

Tellis, who holds a top secret security clearance with access to sensitive compartmented information, is currently an unpaid senior adviser at the State department and works as a contractor in the department of defence’s Office of Net Assessment, where he is considered a subject matter expert on India and South Asian affairs. He also serves as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Queries sent to the Carnegie Endowment did not elicit a response at the time of going to print.

Born in Mumbai, Tellis earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from St Xavier’s College at the University of Bombay before obtaining a doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago. He previously served on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to President George W Bush and senior director for strategic planning and south-west Asia, and as senior adviser to the US ambassador in New Delhi.

According to the affidavit, Tellis was observed on video surveillance on September 25 accessing classified computer systems at the State Department’s Harry S Truman Building and printing hundreds of pages from classified documents, including a 1,288-page file concerning US Air Force tactics. The affidavit states Tellis renamed the file “Econ Reform” before printing selected pages, then deleted the file after printing.

On October 10, surveillance footage from a secure compartmented information facility at the Mark Center in Alexandria, Virginia, allegedly shows Tellis concealing classified documents — including material marked top secret — inside notepads before placing them in his leather briefcase and leaving the facility, according to the court filing.

The affidavit also details multiple meetings between Tellis and officials from the Chinese government at restaurants in Fairfax, Virginia, dating from September 2022 to September 2025. During a dinner on September 15, 2022, “Tellis entered the restaurant with a manila envelope” which “did not appear” to be in his possession when he departed, the document states.

At subsequent meetings, Tellis and Chinese officials were overheard discussing Iranian-Chinese relations, emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, and US-Pakistan relations, according to the affidavit. During a September 2025 meeting, Chinese officials gave Tellis a red gift bag, the document states.

Tellis was scheduled to travel to Rome with his family on the evening of October 11— the same day the search warrant was executed — for a work engagement, with a planned return via Milan on 27 October, according to the affidavit.