(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Last month, a former FBI agent who was once the handler for tech billionaire Peter Thiel, and who later criticized the bureau for allegedly suppressing investigations into ties between Rudy Giuliani and Russian intelligence assets, was arrested on charges of illegally disclosing classified information.
On Thursday, the former agent, Johnathan Buma, was hit with another charge: According to the Justice Department, Buma disclosed the identity of one of his confidential human sources (more commonly known as informants) around November 2023.
NEW: Former FBI agent Jonathan Buma, who was Peter Thiel's handler and who alleged that the bureau suppressed information about Rudy Giuliani's criminality, has been hit with another charge.
The DOJ said on Thursday that Buma disclosed the identity of an undercover informant… https://t.co/ow8qx1aztx pic.twitter.com/R5n33gkeR2— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) April 21, 2025
“BUMA’s responsibilities included managing FBI Confidential Human Sources (“CHSs”),” the DOJ’s new charge alleges.
“On or about November 2, 2023 … BUMA knowingly published … information obtained by him in the course of his employment and official duties, that is, the identity and personal identifying information of an individual, who is known to the United States Attorney and identified as ‘CHS-1,’ and information provided by CHS-1 to the FBI.”
Not surprisingly, the DOJ didn’t name the informant that Buma allegedly outed. Thiel had already been exposed as an FBI informant in an October 2023 Business Insider article, so it doesn’t seem that this latest charge is referring to him.
Buma, who worked for the FBI for 15 years, was arrested last month at a departure gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as he was waiting to board an international flight. According to the DOJ, Buma printed copies of confidential FBI documents and messages and later shared the material with associates as part of a draft of a book he was writing on his time in the bureau.
Before his ouster from the FBI, he was the handling agent for Thiel, a billionaire GOP donor and military contractor. Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and Palantir Technologies, was an early Trump supporter for his 2016 campaign, and later bankrolled Vice President JD Vance’s run for U.S. Senate.
Thiel was outed as an FBI informant by Business Insider in October 2023—a month before the FBI raided Buma’s home.
“Thiel began providing information as a ‘confidential human source,’ or CHS, to Johnathan Buma, a Los Angeles-based FBI agent who specializes in investigating political corruption and foreign-influence campaigns,” Business Insider reported at the time.
Citing fellow FBI informant and former Thiel associate Charles Johnson, the Business Insider article said Thiel started working with the feds in the summer of 2021.
Johnson—the man who outed Thiel as a fed—told Business Insider that he’s the informant code-named “Genius” in Buma’s July 2023 whistleblower statement. That statement does not mention Thiel, but Business Insider independently confirmed that Thiel was indeed a registered FBI confidential human source, or CHS.
In a separate statement to reporter Arthur Bloom, Johnson said Thiel’s FBI code-name is the “Philosopher.”
Buma also provided Headline USA with a whistleblower disclosure last year. This publication didn’t report on the disclosure at the time, but published it last month when Buma was arrested. In the disclosure, Buma mentions that the FBI seized a draft of his personal memoir when agents raided his home in November 2023. He acknowledged that the draft contained “sensitive” info, but said he believed he was operating within the bounds of the law.
An attorney representing Buma has not returned an emailed request for comment. Buma is represented by Mark Geragos, who previously worked on Hunter Biden’s defense team.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
