January 1, EXPOSED: Air Force Spy Gave Iran EVERYTHING — Years-Long Betrayal Revealed

Wyatt’s Take

• Former Air Force intel officer Monica Witt allegedly defected to Iran in 2013, handing over classified U.S. defense secrets and exposing American agents to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
• Witt went from trusted counterintelligence agent to accused traitor — helping Iran build “target packages” on U.S. operatives and deploying malware against her own former colleagues.
• The FBI is now offering $200,000 for information leading to her arrest, calling her betrayal an ongoing threat to national security.

The FBI announced Thursday it’s offering $200,000 for information leading to the arrest of Monica Witt, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist turned alleged Iranian spy. Witt, 47, was federally indicted in Washington, D.C. in 2018 on espionage charges.

She’s accused of defecting to Iran and turning over classified information to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — the same terrorist organization responsible for arming militias that killed American soldiers.

Here’s the timeline of how an American warfighter allegedly became an enemy asset.

Early Military Career

Witt was born in El Paso, Texas, and enlisted in the Air Force in 1997, shortly after her 18th birthday. She was assigned to an RC-135 reconnaissance airplane crew.

Her 2018 indictment reveals she was sent to the U.S. Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, between 1998 and 1999, where she learned Persian Farsi — the language of Iran.

From May 1999 to November 2003, Witt was deployed to “several overseas locations in order to conduct classified missions collecting signals intelligence.” In 2002, she deployed to Saudi Arabia.

The indictment says Witt was assigned as an Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) special agent criminal investigator and counterintelligence officer. She deployed to Iraq in 2005 and Qatar in 2006.

She was part of a “Special Access Program” (SAP) that gave her access to classified information, including “details of ongoing counterintelligence operations, true names of sources, and the identities of U.S. agents involved in the recruitment of those sources.”

That kind of access meant Witt knew everything — who our spies were, how they operated, and what missions were underway. In the wrong hands, it could get Americans killed.

Exit from the Air Force

Witt’s time as a member of the Air Force came to an end in 2008. From 2008 until 2010, Witt was employed as a government contractor but worked with AFOSI.

She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland in 2008, just about the same time she left the Air Force. She then enrolled in a graduate program at George Washington University in Middle East studies.

Classmates described Witt as “withdrawn” and “alienated,” fixated on “drone strikes, extrajudicial killings and atrocities against children.” Her shift from patriot to critic was underway.

The Turning Point

It was in February 2012, just before she graduated from George Washington University, that the government says Witt set her plans to betray the United States and defect to Iran in motion. She traveled to Iran that month to attend the International Conference on Hollywoodism in Tehran, an anti-Western event held during the Fajr International Film Festival each year “aimed at condemning American moral standards and promoting anti-U.S. propaganda,” according to the indictment.

During that trip, she allegedly provided her “bona fides” to the IRGC to establish that she was a credible source of American national defense intelligence — and that she disclosed government secrets to them.

Witt was not invited to the conference, but was allowed to speak anyway. The indictment says she “was identified as a U.S. veteran and made statements that were critical of the U.S. government, knowing these videos would be broadcast by Iranian media outlets.”

At the same time, her public conversion to Islam was filmed and broadcast on Iranian state television. It was propaganda gold for the Iranian regime.

FBI Warning Came Too Late

In May 2012, at about the same time she received her graduate degree, the FBI reached out to Witt, telling her she was a prime target for recruitment by Iranian intelligence officials. By then, it was too late.

Witt had become ensnared by a “spotter” — someone who recruits on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. The indictment refers to the “spotter” as “Individual A,” identified as Louisiana-born journalist turned naturalized Iranian citizen and state television broadcaster Marzieh Hashemi.

Hashemi allegedly traveled to the U.S., and along with Witt, filmed an anti-Western propaganda film that was later distributed in Iran.

The Defection

Over the course of the next year, according to the indictment, Witt bounced around from country to country while she worked with Hashemi to gain permanent residence in Iran. Some of that time was spent in Dubai and Afghanistan.

Around that time, the FBI put out a missing persons declaration for Witt, saying that as of July 2013, she was believed to be in either Afghanistan or Tajikistan teaching English.

Text messages between the pair chronicled their efforts, including Iranian suspicion of Witt and alleged plans to “slip into Russia quietly” and expose U.S. secrets via WikiLeaks if she couldn’t gain access to Iran. Witt explicitly said in one message that she would not go to Turkey for fear of the country’s extradition agreement with the United States.

But on Aug. 25, 2013, according to the indictment, Witt sent an email titled “My Bio and Job History” to Hashemi, which contained more “bona fides,” her Certificate of Release or Discharge From Active Duty DD-214 form, and her Islamic “conversion narrative.” The indictment alleges that around the same time, she searched on Facebook for the names of U.S. intelligence services assets.

The same day, that email was forwarded to an email address associated with the Iranian government.

On Aug. 28, 2013, she boarded a flight to Iran.

“I’m signing off and heading out! Coming home,” she texted Hashemi.

Betrayal in Action

Immediately after defecting, Witt was accused of providing Iranian government officials with the code name for a Department of Defense Special Access Program. Throughout 2014 and 2015, she allegedly helped create “target packages,” defined as “a document, or set of documents, assembled to enable an intelligence or military unit to find, fix, track, and neutralize a threat,” for the Iranian government.

Those “target packages” have allegedly included the names of U.S. counterintelligence agents — the very people she once worked alongside.

Later, she is accused of linking up with Iranian hackers and producing malware “designed to capture a target’s keystrokes, access a computer’s web camera, and monitor other computer activity.”

This technology was turned against U.S. intelligence assets whom Witt identified, according to the indictment. Witt and her co-defendants concocted schemes to implant malware on the computers of U.S. military intelligence workers known to Witt, mostly by reaching out to them through Facebook.

She was indicted alongside four other co-conspirators accused in the hacking operation.

The Charges

Witt is officially charged with conspiracy to deliver and delivering national defense information to representatives of the Iranian government, delivering national defense information to representatives of the Iranian government, conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, computer intrusion, aggravated identity theft and aiding and abetting.

“Monica Witt allegedly betrayed her oath to the Constitution more than a decade ago by defecting to Iran and providing the Iranian regime National Defense Information and likely continues to support their nefarious activities,” Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division, said in Thursday’s announcement about the $200,000 reward.

“The FBI has not forgotten and believes that during this critical moment in Iran’s history, there is someone who knows something about her whereabouts. The FBI wants to hear from you so you can help us apprehend Witt and bring her to justice.”

Wyatt Matters

This isn’t just about one bad apple. It’s about a system that gave someone with access to our nation’s deepest secrets the ability to walk away and hand everything to our enemies. Witt didn’t just betray her oath — she put American lives at risk. Every family with a son or daughter in uniform should be furious. We trusted her to protect us, and she chose Iran instead. That’s unforgivable.