A former employee of the National Security Agency was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison Monday for selling classified material to a person he believed to be a Russian agent.

The individual that Jareh Sebastian Dalke thought was a Russian official was actually a covert FBI agent.

Dalke, who pleaded guilty last year to six counts of attempting to transmit national security secrets to a foreign agent, will spend 262 months behind bars for the espionage attempt.

“This was blatant. It was brazen and, in my mind, it was deliberate. It was a betrayal, and it was as close to treasonous as you can get,” US District Judge Raymond Moore said at the 32-year-old Colorado Springs man’s sentencing hearing, according to the Associated Press.  ...

“This defendant, who had sworn an oath to defend our country, believed he was selling classified national security information to a Russian agent, when in fact, he was outing himself to the FBI,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

“This sentence demonstrates that that those who seek to betray our country will be held accountable for their crimes,” he added. ...

I did not put JR into a pit and fill him with lead, however. Although I must say that image has a certain appeal. Just sayin'.