"[Stephen] Kellogg admitted that while on active duty on August 27, 2018, he attempted to board a commercial airline from San Diego, California, to New York City with the intention of providing classified information regarding the US Navy’s nuclear-powered warships to a journalist whom he thought would release the information to the public", the release said on Thursday.
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Kellogg, 26, served aboard the nuclear-powered warship USS Carl Vinson as a nuclear electrician’s mate and had access to classified information relating to the capabilities and operations of US Navy nuclear propulsion systems, the FBI said.
Kellogg separately admitted that in the summer of 2018, he told his roommate that he "was planning to defect" to Russia and searched the Internet for flights to Russia and the contact information for Russian shipbuilding company Sevmash.
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