Suburban Spies Are Us
A Maryland couple has been convicted of trying to sell U.S. nuclear submarine secrets to Brazil in a tale too strange to be anything but true.
In a plot that seems destined to be a made-for-tv movie, a nondescript, average couple from suburban Maryland thought they’d hatched the perfect plan to get rich.
In April of 2020, Jonathan Toebbe was a naval nuclear engineer working for the U.S. government. His wife Diana Toebbe was an ordinary housewife with a teaching degree collecting dust and a blistering hatred for Donald Trump on par with the fire of a thousand suns.
The Mueller Report was a complete bust, as were two impeachments against Trump and subsequent investigations since then. Somewhere along the line, politics pushed a seemingly normal couple with no criminal record to decide to…cold call a foreign government with an offer to sell classified U.S. nuclear military secrets.
During the process of discovery, in building the government’s case against the Toebbes, a veritable treasure trove of information was unearthed. Text messages exchanged, communications between the couple and those to whom they hoped to sell U.S. military secrets; everything.
The couple selected Brazil to approach with their nefarious offer: Classified information about U.S. nuclear warships and submarines in return for money…