Desi Talk

www.desitalk.com – that’s all you need to know 4 NATIONAL AFFAIRS October 24, 2025 Former National Security Council Staffer Charged Under Espionage Act A n adviser to the Defense and State departments known as a leading expert on Indian and South Asian affairs has been charged with violating the Espionage Act by retaining more than 1,000 pages of records with classified markings at his home. Ashley J. Tellis, who had served on the National Secu- rity Council during President GeorgeW. Bush’s admin- istration and as a senior adviser to the U.S. ambassador in India, was arrested Saturday after the FBI raided his home in Vienna, Virginia, finding hundreds of pages with classification markings in the basement, according to court records. Tellis was charged with unlawful retention of national defense information, for which the maximum sentence is 10 years in prison. His attorneys said they “will be vigor- ously contesting the allegations brought against him.” A naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India, Tellis had a top-secret security clearance through his dual roles as an unpaid senior counselor to the State Department and contractor with the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment, a think tank within the Pentagon. De- fense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this year that the office was being abolished. According to an FBI affidavit, U.S. officials had been investigating Tellis for years. He was spotted having dinner with Chinese officials in Northern Virginia on at least four occasions from 2022 to last month and was overheard discussing Iranian-Chinese relations, the U.S.- Pakistan relationship and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, an FBI agent said in the court filing. Tellis arrived at a dinner in 2022 with a manila enve- lope that he did not appear to have upon departing, the FBI filing says. At a dinner last month in Fairfax, Chinese officials gave Tellis a red gift bag, the document says. A federal magistrate judge in Alexandria, Virginia, granted a request from federal prosecutors to hold Tellis in jail until a detention hearing scheduled for Oct. 21. The State Department referred questions to the FBI. Tellis, 64, has published several books and studies on India’s role as a nuclear power and was also serving as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Inter- national Peace at the time of the arrest. He is now on administrative leave from the organization, a Carnegie spokeswoman confirmedWednesday. In a statement responding to the accusationsWednes- day, Tellis’s attorneys said he had built a reputation as a widely respected scholar and senior policy adviser to the U.S. government. “At the next court hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday and in our related filings on Monday, we will be vigorously contesting the allegations brought against him, specifically any insinuation of his operat- ing on behalf of a foreign adversary,” attorneys Deborah Curtis and John Nassikas said. In the charging documents filed in U.S. District Court, officials said Tellis had printed hundreds of pages of classified records at Defense and State facilities in the Washington region since last month, including more than 350 pages from a document that bore markings showing that it was classified at the “secret” level and contained risk-sensitive information from a foreign government that had been obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. -TheWashington Post By Salvador Rizzo Florida Politician Chandler Langevin Draws Outrage Over Calls For Mass Ouster Of Indian Immigrants A Florida city council member has drawn the ire of national Indian American groups, members of Congress and local residents after he published a stream of social media posts disparaging Indians in the United States and calling for their mass deportation. Palm Bay council member Chandler Langevin, who was elected last year, lambasted Indians in posts on X, writing over about three weeks this fall that Indians come to the U.S. to “drain our pockets” and then return to India, “or worse … to stay.” Outrage over his comments has upended the com- munity and rippled beyond it. Since Sept. 29, residents and members of regional and national Indian American groups have flooded meetings at Palm Bay’s city council chambers, released statements denouncing his remarks and demanded his resignation. Late Thursday, Langevin’s fellow council members voted 3-2 to censure him.“We’re all overwhelmed by everything,” Mayor Rob Medina, who is a member of the council, said during the meeting. “This nation was found- ed on immigrants. …We are all part of the very fabric of the flag, our banner, the United States of America.” National advocacy group Hindus for Human Rights has published a letter calling on Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) – who under Florida law has the power to suspend municipal officials – to remove Langevin from office. At an Oct. 2 council meeting, Bharat Patel, the former chair of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, said the council member’s remarks “echo some of history’s dark- est rhetoric,” potentially even inspiring acts of violence. Prashant Patel, president of the Indian American Busi- ness Association and Chamber, told council members that Langevin’s actions are deeply polarizing. In a phone call with TheWashington Post onWednes- day, Langevin said he had aimed to start “discourse” about immigration policies. “I’m not the first Republican to make a mean tweet,” he said. Palm Bay, on Florida’s eastern coast, has also sent a let- ter to DeSantis demanding that he remove Langevin from office. DeSantis’s office has not responded to the letter nor to The Post’s requests for comment. Meanwhile, local and national Republican Party mem- bers, including the Brevard County Republican Party, Rep. Mike Haridopolos (Florida) and Sen. Rick Scott (Florida), have also denounced Langevin’s rhetoric. “Even though Mr. Langevin is a registered Republican, his views are his, and his alone and in no way reflect the views of the Brevard Republican Party,” Brevard County Republican Party chairman Rick Lacey said in a state- ment. “We applaud the overwhelming majority vote of the Palm Bay City Council to request Governor DeSantis suspend Mr. Langevin from his office. …Hate like this has no place in our county.” Langevin said the city council’s censure, calls for his removal and condemnation from fellow Republicans are “reprehensible” and represent a stifling of different viewpoints. He added that he has no intention of abdicat- ing his seat. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. It’s unclear how many Indians live in Palm Bay, the largest city in Brevard County, which voted overwhelm- ingly for President Donald Trump in last year’s election. About 2 percent of the city’s roughly 135,000 residents identify as Asian, Census data show. There are no telltale signs of an established Indian community: The near- est Indian restaurant appears to be one town over, in Melbourne, and there appear to be no Indian grocers in the area. About 5 million people in the U.S. identified as Indian in 2023, but little of that population lives in Florida. The population was just shy of 210,000 in the state as of 2024, according to AAPI Data, a nonpartisan research group focused on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. When asked why he homed in on the Indian com- munity despite its slim presence in his city and state, Langevin told The Post he would respond in writing. He did not. Langevin posted at least five derogatory comments about Indians on X beginning in mid-September, includ- ing one in which he accused Indians of “destroying the South.” On Sept. 26, Langevin shared a post from the Depart- ment of Homeland Security about an Indian truck driver the agency accused of causing an accident that killed a woman. “Deport every Indian immediately,” he wrote in his repost. The agency’s post came days after a separate incident in which a commercial truck driver, a California resident from India, was accused of killing three people on a Flor- ida highway. DHS, DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) clashed over the incident, and the Trump administration soon toughened rules for noncitizens to obtain commercial driver’s licenses. As Langevin posted anti-Indian remarks on social media, Medina, the city’s mayor, published a message to the city on Sept. 29, assuring residents that “words that demean or devalue others have no place in the Palm Bay we aspire to be.” The city council held a special session the next eve- ning, where residents packed the town hall forum to air concerns about Langevin. Langevin was undeterred. He posted on X on Oct. 2: “Today is my birthday and all I want is for @realDon- aldTrump to revoke every Indian visa and deport them immediately. America for Americans” -TheWashington Post By Anumita Kaur PHOTO:FACEBOOK @CHANDLERFORPB/ Palm Bay, Florida, City Councilman Chandler Langevin.