The FBI on Tuesday arrested James Thomas Ashbacher, a former U.S. government contractor, on charges that he leaked national defense information on social media and stole night vision goggles from the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command, according to the Department of Justice.

Ashbacher, 37, of Spring Lake, North Carolina, was charged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday. The charges are unlawfully transmitting and retaining national defense information, and theft of government property. An indictment is an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

According to the indictment, Ashbacher began working around 2021 for a private company that provided security and emergency management services at the U.S. Army Special Operations Command facility at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He held a Top Secret security clearance with Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) access.

The indictment says Ashbacher photographed and removed without authorization videos and photographs containing images of classified military operations. It says he transmitted the materials to a social media site. Other users later re-posted the classified materials on a second social media site.

The indictment also says Ashbacher asked a social media user in a private message to remove some of the materials. In the message, according to the indictment, he said he was “trying to do some damage control.”

The Justice Department said a search of Ashbacher’s residence revealed a classified award write-up containing additional national defense information. The search also revealed a night vision goggle system specific to a military unit within Army Special Operations Command. The department said the equipment had been reported missing.

The FBI Charlotte Field Office is investigating, with substantial assistance from the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division. Trial Attorney Leslie Esbrook of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Logan Liles for the Eastern District of North Carolina are prosecuting the case.

The press release did not say when Ashbacher will appear in court. It also did not say what penalties he could face or whether he has a lawyer.