US nuclear submarine secrets sold?

The disgraced navy engineer and his wife attempted to sell US nuclear submarine secrets to Brazil, but were caught and are now facing a combined sentence of 20 years in prison.

Jonathan Toebbe, 43, and his Trump-hating teacher wife, Diana, were arrested last October after prosecutors claimed he approached a foreign government in an attempt to provide the country with thousands of pages of stolen classified documents about the nuclear reactors that power the United States’ submarine fleet.

Federal prosecutors had kept the identity of the foreign power hidden. Investigators determined that the Toebbes had contacted a friendly foreign state rather than an opponent, leading to widespread speculation that it was France.

According to the New York Times, a top Brazilian official and others involved with the probe verified Toebbe approached their government in April 2020.

Analysts said Toebbe’s approach was a ‘strange decision,’ considering that then-President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had cemented the nations’ bond. Some believe that during the time, US-Brazilian ties were the closest in decades.

According to sources acquainted with the inquiry, the Toebbes chose Brazil because they felt the country was hungry to acquire nuclear technology and affluent enough to buy their secrets, but not antagonistic to the United States.

According to text texts submitted in court, the pair thought that seeking secrets from American foes such as Russia or China was unethical.

According to a record of the court hearings, Toebbe wrote, ‘It’s also not ethically justified.’ ‘We told ourselves that it was alright, but it isn’t, is it?’

‘I have no problems with that,’ Diana said. I have no attachment to abstractions.’

The couple decided on Brazil because they thought the country would be eager to receive the information. They pointed out that only a few countries were not “overly hostile” to the United States and could benefit from Toebbe’s stolen blueprints.

In recent years, Brazil, which began constructing its own nuclear submarines in 1978, has appeared to be interested in the technology.