(Ken Silva, Headline USA) An 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 this week on charges of illegally disclosing classified information, according to court records filed Tuesday.
Johnathan Buma, who has worked for the FBI for 15 years, allegedly 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.
He was arrested Monday at a departure gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as he was waiting to board an international flight, court records said.
An attorney representing Buma did not immediately return an emailed request for comment.
Last year, Headline USA obtained a whistleblower disclosure Buma made to the DOJ Inspector General, but didn’t report on it at the time because this reporter was pursuing other projects, including an ongoing investigation into the Trump assassination attempts. Given that Buma’s disclosure directly addresses the allegations against him, Headline USA is publishing the disclosure here for the first time:
I obtained a disclosure from Buma last year. I didn't report on it at the time because I found it too convoluted, and I later forgot all about it once I became balls deep in the Trump shooting.
But given these new developments, I think it's in the public interest to publish it… https://t.co/liOZldmHmy pic.twitter.com/p8GbIRyDWg— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) March 20, 2025
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.
“During the raid of my home, the agents claimed they were looking for classified materials but only ‘seized’ information I had provided to Congress pursuant to the protections guaranteed under the whistleblower statute. No incriminating evidence was found from the search, but they took every electronic device from my home,” he said in his February 2024 disclosure to the DOJ-OIG, which this reporter obtained months later.
“Ironically, the only ‘sensitive’ information found at my home in the search was documentation directly related to my own suppressed whistleblower complaint, which I had previously provided to the Congressional Oversight Committee investigators, which was labeled in the receipt of items seized as ‘classified information,’ as well as a draft of a personal memoir I was writing. I fully believe my actions were in alignment with the spirit of the whistleblower statute,” Buma’s statement said.
Buma has raised issues with how the FBI was handling certain investigations through statements to news media, various government agencies and Congress, according to the filing.
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 an article 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.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
