Maryland-based Navy nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe and wife, Diana, were arrested Saturday and charged with selling secret information about the design of nuclear power warships to an unidentified foreign country.
Turns out, Diana is a committed leftist who supported Hillary Clinton and “The Resistance,” according to the Daily Mail, which scanned her social media profile. The nuclear engineer’s wife has posted about “stopping Donald Trump” and has expressed support for the oft-violent Black Lives Matter movement, the British tabloid reported.
“For almost a year, Jonathan Toebbe, 42, aided by his wife, Diana, 45, sold information known as Restricted Data concerning the design of nuclear-powered warships to a person they believed was a representative of a foreign power,” the Department of Justice said in a statement. “In actuality, that person was an undercover FBI agent. The Toebbes have been charged in a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Atomic Energy Act.”
The statement said that Toebbe “sent a package to a foreign government, listing a return address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, containing a sample of Restricted Data and instructions for establishing a covert relationship to purchase additional Restricted Data.”
“The affidavit also alleges that, thereafter, Toebbe began corresponding via encrypted email with an individual whom he believed to be a representative of the foreign government,” the statement explained. “The individual was really an undercover FBI agent. Jonathan Toebbe continued this correspondence for several months, which led to an agreement to sell Restricted Data in exchange for thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.”
Jonathan Toebbe, 42, and wife Diane, 45, have been charged with selling secret information about nuclear submarines to an undercover FBI agent pic.twitter.com/18aXRRjsFO
— INTELSky (@Intel_Sky) October 11, 2021
“The complaint charges a plot to transmit information relating to the design of our nuclear submarines to a foreign nation,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “The work of the FBI, Department of Justice prosecutors, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Department of Energy was critical in thwarting the plot charged in the complaint and taking this first step in bringing the perpetrators to justice.”
Citing court documents, CBS News reported that at one point Toebbe agreed to sell restricted data to the undercover agent for $10,000 in cryptocurrency.
“Toebbe and his wife, Diana, then allegedly went to West Virginia, where the Navy engineer placed a memory card inside half a peanut butter sandwich, with his wife on the lookout,” the network said. The card allegedly contained restricted data about submarine nuclear reactors, according to the DOJ. Other dead drops reportedly included leaving memory cards inside a sealed Band-Aid wrapper and a chewing gum package.
A Humanities professor at the Key School for the last ten years, a progressive private school in Annapolis, Diana taught history and English, the Daily Mail reported, noting that she was seen as “a strong feminist and very liberal.”
As for Diana’s social media activity, here’s more from the Daily Mail:
She made multiple posts about supporting The Resistance and in one she retweeted that ‘America is Temporarily Out of Order.’
She also supported liberal ideologies, including the Black Lives Matter movement. Her profile picture reads ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and a post last year celebrating the social media protest against racism called ‘#blackouttuesday.’
One such Facebook post shared in the article can be seen below:
Craig Martien, a 2019 alum, told the newspaper Diana was shocked when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 and talked about the possibility of moving to Australia more than once.
“She said she couldn’t stand the current state of politics and actually had found some job opportunities over there,” Martien said — Australia is a member of an elite fraternity of six countries that have nuclear submarines.
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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