Dismantling the Deep State can be tremendously difficult to achieve. On occasions, though, the trash takes itself out. 

Meet Nathan Villas Laatsch, who started off this week working at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He ended up this week exploring the confines of a room at the federal Graybar Hotel, thanks to a string of incredibly un-intelligent life choices. Prosecutors allege that Laatsch decided that he didn't want to help secure an America that elected Donald Trump as president, and attempted to sell some secrets to one of our allies in order to secure a new life abroad:

Nathan Villas Laatsch, who worked in IT for the military intelligence service, offered to share classified material with an unspecified “friendly foreign government,” according to court documents and an announcement by the DOJ.

“The recent actions of the current administration are extremely disturbing to me,” he said in the email, according to an FBI affidavit filed with the court. “I do not agree or align with the values of this administration and intend to act to support the values that the United States at one time stood for.”

And here's the ironic part. What exactly did Laatsch do for the DIA? Three guesses, and the first two don't count:

Laatsch worked in the DIA’s Insider Threat Division, a unit devoted to detecting employees who might be disclosing or prone to disclose sensitive information.

If this were a movie, we'd all be throwing popcorn at the screen and shouting, Come on, man. 

How did the FBI get hold of that e-mail? Apparently, the FBI can do counter-espionage a lot better than Laatsch. The Department of Justice tells that tale in their press release and in submissions to the federal court:

According to court documents, Laatsch became a civilian employee of the DIA in 2019, where he works with the Insider Threat Division and holds a Top Secret security clearance. In March 2025, the FBI commenced an operation after receiving a tip that an individual — now known to be Laatsch — offered to provide classified information to a friendly foreign government. In that email, the sender wrote that he did not “agree or align with the values of this administration” and was therefore “willing to share classified information” that he had access to, including “completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation.”

After multiple communications with an FBI agent — who Laatsch allegedly believed to be an official of the foreign government — Laatsch began transcribing classified information to a notepad at his desk and, over the course of approximately three days, repeatedly exfiltrated the information from his workspace. Laatsch subsequently confirmed to the FBI agent that he was prepared to transmit the information.

Pause here just a moment to reflect on the stupidity that this alleged sequence demonstrates. Laatsch by this time had six years of experience in doing precisely what the FBI did to set him up ... and Laatsch never saw it coming? The DIA has some serious problems with training in its ranks, or perhaps the issue is more basic: they're hiring morons. And highly politicized morons at that, which leads to other questions about DIA leadership over the last few years. 

The statement describes how the FBI got Laatsch to transmit classified material to their counter-espionage team on several occasions between May 1 and May 27th. That is important for prosecutors, because while it could be a crime just to discuss such offers with foreign governments, it's a relatively minor crime and might not result in jail time. Until a suspect commits an overt act of espionage, they can always claim to have been joking, doing research for a novel, setting up a sting, etc. The latter might actually pertain to Laatsch in his job duties as a counter-intel operator for DIA.

That's why the FBI gave Laatsch plenty of opportunities to run up the score on charges under (presumably) 18 USC 793, where each charge could bring a ten-year prison sentence. Under that statute, it matters not whether the target government is "friendly" or not. It also doesn't matter whether it's motivated by money or ideology, as Laatsch will soon discover if he hasn't already. Passing sensitive nat-sec materials to anyone not authorized to receive them is a crime under this statute, also known as the Espionage Act (and which was much discussed and analyzed in regard to Hillary Clinton's email server in 2016). 

Anyway, Laatsch's last week in the open ends pretty much the way one would predict in this scenario, at least according to the DoJ. After telling his contact about how he wants citizenship and asylum in the unnamed country for his work, Laatsch showed up in person to make his final transfer, apparently still blissfully unaware that he'd walked into a trap he should have seen coming from a mile away:

On May 14, the FBI agent advised Laatsch that it was prepared to receive additional classified information. Between May 15 and May 27, Laatsch again repeatedly transcribed multiple pages of notes while logged into his classified workstation, folded the notes, and exfiltrated the classified information in his clothing.

On May 29, Laatsch arrived at a prearranged location in northern Virginia, where Laatsch again allegedly attempted to transmit multiple classified documents to the foreign country. Laatsch was arrested upon the FBI’s receipt of the documents.

And all of this because Laatsch was allegedly so butt-hurt over the election results. If that proves to be true, perhaps Laatsch's future won't be entirely bleak. He can look forward to getting the Reality Winner treatment from the Protection Racket Media as some sort of La Résistance 2.0 icon for a hot second or so before fading into obscurity. Of course, Laatsch will have a few years in prison to contemplate the arc of that career on his release, and try to figure out how to sell that story when Trump is out of office and no longer as politically and culturally relevant. And it will happen in a media environment where Trump has sued the ever-loving crap out of every major media outlet for defamation and forced them into settlements, too. The Trump Derangement Syndrome market won't be anywhere near as lucrative as it was for Winner et al.

Finally, there is a bit of mystery here left to unravel. Assuming the government can prove this case, it raises the question: who tipped off the FBI in the first place? Perhaps we'll never know for sure, but Laatsch's decision to hit up a "friendly" government with this offer might be a clue. Governments spy on each other all the time, but perhaps this particular "friend" decided to do Trump and the US a solid by alerting them to the mole in the DIA.

And that leads us to our last question: How many more TDS 'moles' might there be in the DIA and elsewhere in the Derp State? Let's all hope they are as incompetent as Laatsch allegedly is, but I wouldn't count on it.