“I had a messianic vision for myself in Russia, that I was going to free them from their opressive government, so I was flattered when they reached out to me,” Debbins wrote in a statement released by prosecutors Thursday. “In addition, I was concern [sic] what they could have done with my wife’s family.”
Debbins confessed collaboration with a very sophisticated foreign intelligence agency, the GRU,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas W. Traxler said, referencing the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Authorities say that the alleged conspiracy occurred between 1996 and 2011.
Debbins has worked in intelligence and had access to “highly classified information,” Traxler said. His admission came during a security clearance renewal investigation in 2019, Traxler said.
A resume released by prosecutors shows Debbins worked for the defense contractors CACI, Booz Allen Hamilton and Cosolutions on Russia and cybersecurity.
Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson questioned why, if Debbins made an admission in writing in July 2019 and his London home was searched at the time, he was not arrested until now.
Debbins sat for eight interviews with federal agents, defense attorney David Benowitz noted. He also flew overseas and returned during the investigation.
Traxler said the government was “concerned” Debbins would flee over the past year but had to corroborate the statement. It would have been “premature” to arrest him any earlier, Traxler said.
The court records indicate that Debbins appealed to Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) in December for help with his security clearance issues, saying he had a job offer as a contractor for the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Mr. Debbins thought that he was going to be able to talk his way out of it,” Traxler said.
As Benowitz argued unsuccessfully to have his client freed pending trial, the defense attorney said that, with a little effort, authorities “could have charged Mr. Debbins” in the past year.
He also noted that the allegations of collusion with Russia end a decade ago.
“To say that there’s this immediacy of danger . . . doesn’t fly,” Benowitz said.
While Traxler suggested the GRU would help Debbins flee to Russia, Benowitz argued otherwise.
He “exposed ties and contacts to the GRU, which the GRU would view as a betrayal,” Benowitz said. “He would likely end up in jail or worse if he were to go to Russia at this point.”
Anderson said it was a “close question” but agreed Debbins could not be released: “He has information that could cause damage to the United States if disclosed to a foreign government.”
Prosecutors say Debbins was first approached by Russian intelligence when he was a 19-year-old student at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps studying abroad in Chelyabinsk, Russia. He met his future wife, whose father was a colonel in the Russian air force living in Chelyabinsk, according to the indictment.
First Debbins was tasked with getting the names of four nuns at a local Catholic church, according to the statement, which does not say why such information was sought. That began a 15-year relationship, prosecutors allege, in which he regularly reported to Russian intelligence officers under the code name “lkar Lesnikov.”
Debbins is accused of sharing information on his Special Forces unit’s activities and personnel, the names of U.S. counterintelligence operatives, and the name of a fellow Special Forces member he thought might be receptive to recruitment by Russia. In return, prosecutors say, he was given $1,000, a bottle of cognac and a Russian military uniform. In his statement, Debbins said the Russians also offered him the services of prostitutes, which he declined. He said he was asked to provide the Russians with Army field manuals but did not do so.
Debbins was on active duty from 1998 to 2005, first as a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear officer before joining the Special Forces, according to an Army spokesman. Debbins did not serve in combat. His security clearance was suspended for a violation during an assignment in Azerbaijan in 2004.
He then went into the private sector against the wishes of the Russian operatives, according to the indictment, who wanted him to pursue a career in the U.S. government. Despite concern over the Azerbaijan incident, his business ties to Russia and his father-in-law, he was granted a top-secret security clearance in 2010 through the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Debbins went on to teach at the Academy for Defense Intelligence at Fort Meade and as an instructor for the U.S. European Command and NATO.
The indictment makes no mention of any contact with Russian intelligence after 2011. In 2012, the GRU approached Debbins’s father-in-law to ask about the defendant, the statement said.
Debbins has traveled in the same circles as members of the Trump administration and other prominent Republicans. He is a graduate of the Institute of World Politics, a national security graduate school in Washington founded by a Reagan administration Soviet specialist. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s son attended the school; Trump associate Erik Prince has served on the board of trustees.
IWP did not respond to requests for comment and has removed content referencing Debbins from its public website.
He was a guest at a 2017 dinner attended by Prince and funded in part by Foster Friess, a prominent Republican donor.
Prince and Friess did not comment.
In early 2017, Debbins told a friend via email that he was a candidate for a position on the National Security Council, “specifically Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia and Central Asia.”
It is not clear how serious his candidacy was; he never served in the Trump administration.
“It was a complete shock,” said Basil Bessonoff, who taught Russian at IWP. “He made an impression of a very conservative guy. . . . You never know in Washington, eh?”