A Department of Energy engineer at the Hanford nuclear site is in federal custody, charged with trying to help the Iran-backed Houthis, and he faces a detention hearing in Richland, Washington, on Tuesday. Prosecutors say Ashton Hamed Ellaboudy got into Yemen in September 2025 on an official U.S. government passport from a job he had already left. The State Department's own rules say that passport should have been dead and back in Washington the day that job ended.

What Is Ellaboudy Charged With?

FBI agents arrested Ellaboudy, 51, at his Richland home on Thursday, October 1. The Justice Department charged him by criminal complaint with attempting to provide material support or resources to the Houthis, a designated foreign terrorist organization. The charge carries up to 20 years in prison.

"As alleged, a U.S. government employee traveled overseas and used his specialized expertise in an attempt to aid the Houthis, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization backed by Iran," said John A. Eisenberg, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security. He called the allegations "so deeply disturbing that they almost defy imagination."

The FBI's Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force ran the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Cartier-Giroux and two trial attorneys from the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting. Like every complaint, it is an allegation, and Ellaboudy is presumed innocent.

According to DOJ, the FBI first heard about Ellaboudy from tips that he had bought precursor chemicals and other materials "commonly used in the construction of homemade explosive devices," along with parts for drones and remotely operated aerial systems. KHQ/NonStop Local, which read the FBI affidavit, reports the purchases ran from November 2024 to February 2025 and were shipped to his Richland home.

In December 2024 he took sick leave, saying he had been exposed to highly concentrated nitric acid. The Tri-City Herald reports he told his supervisor he was distilling nitric acid in his backyard to make rocket propellant for an amateur rocketry hobby he had never mentioned before. The Richland bomb squad was at the house during Thursday's search.

Into Yemen on a Government Passport

In September 2025, DOJ says, Ellaboudy flew from Richland to Oman on "an official passport previously issued to him when employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." He then used that same passport to cross into Yemen, aiming for Sanaa, the capital the Houthis control. The Tri-City Herald reports that court papers say he never got as far as Sanaa.

KHQ reports the affidavit describes him later telling an FBI source he had been smuggled into and out of Yemen and wanted to reach Sanaa to make contacts. The FBI believed he was trying to connect with the leadership of Ansarallah, the Houthis' formal name. In one message, investigators say, he wrote in Arabic: "The house is Yemen today. God willing, when I return."

The Rule That Should Have Stopped That Passport

Here is the part the headlines skipped. An official passport, the maroon book, is not a perk an employee keeps. Under 22 CFR 51.3(c), State issues one to a federal employee "traveling abroad to carry out official duties." The next section, 22 CFR 51.4(d), says it is valid for five years "or so long as the bearer maintains his or her official status, whichever is shorter."

The same paragraph says an unexpired official passport "must be returned to the Department upon the termination of the bearer's official status." And 51.4(g)(6) says a special issuance passport is invalid "as soon as" the bearer "no longer maintains the status pursuant to which the passport was issued." No paperwork step is needed for that clause to apply. The status ends, and the book is supposed to be dead.

The State Department's own public guidance is blunter. Special-issuance passports are "Not valid for personal travel." You can use one "as long as you have the position or status for which we issued it." They are "the property of the U.S. government," and "You will need to return it when you leave your service."

So Why Did It Still Work in 2025?

The Tri-City Herald reports Ellaboudy has worked at Hanford since late 2022, after his Army Corps job at McNary Lock and Dam in Umatilla, Oregon. That means the Army Corps status his passport was tied to ended roughly three years before the Yemen trip. By the plain text of 51.4, the book was invalid and overdue for return the whole time.

Yet the public record shows it carried him into Yemen and back home. KHQ reports Customs and Border Protection interviewed him when he landed in Los Angeles on September 26, 2025. He told officers the trip was Department of Energy work. The Tri-City Herald reports he claimed he was assigned to inspect U.S. missile defense systems and held a "secret level security clearance."

None of it was true, according to the complaint. His DOE supervisor told investigators there was no official travel, no missile inspection assignment, and no DOE security clearance. DOJ says he had no authorized official travel to that region at all.

The filings made public so far do not say whether the Army Corps ever asked for the passport back, or whether State ever flagged it as invalid in its systems. Those are fair questions for the agencies involved. A government ID that the rules say should have been surrendered was, by DOJ's account, his ticket into Houthi territory and his cover story at the border.

What He Allegedly Built for the "Colonel"

After the trip, the FBI put a confidential human source on him. The source posed as someone working for a Houthi "Colonel" who wanted communications equipment for a mobile communications center in Yemen. The Tri-City Herald reports the center was to be housed in a recreational vehicle.

DOJ says Ellaboudy used his electrical engineering background to help test and modify solar power generators and communications gear. He drew schematics, explained how the power and radio systems fit together, and researched more equipment the Houthis could use. The Herald reports some of that work was done on his DOE workstation.

KHQ's read of the affidavit adds more. He allegedly suggested hiding antennas and peeling off a Motorola label to disguise what the gear was for, and sent a file titled "Solar Config.pdf." He also floated buying future equipment from China and routing it through other countries before it reached Yemen.

Who Are the Houthis He Allegedly Wanted to Help?

The Houthis are the Iran-backed movement that holds Sanaa and much of northern Yemen. After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, they began firing on commercial ships in the Red Sea and launched missiles and drones at Israel, as the Herald summarizes. Their official slogan, painted across the capital, starts with "Death to America."

President Trump moved to re-designate them a Foreign Terrorist Organization in January 2025, reversing the Biden administration's 2021 decision to drop the label. KHQ reports the affidavit puts the designation in effect since March 5, 2025. That date matters: it is the legal hook that turns engineering help for a Yemeni militia into a federal terrorism charge.

Was Hanford Ever at Risk?

DOE says no. "This matter did not involve an attempt to harm the Hanford Site or its workforce, and at no time was there a threat to the safety or security of the site," said Ray Geimer, manager of DOE's Hanford Field Office, in the DOJ release.

Hanford is not a small office park. The 580-square-mile site produced nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for America's nuclear arsenal from World War II through the Cold War, and it still holds radioactive and chemical waste, per the Herald. The Herald reports Ellaboudy worked in DOE's Nuclear Safety Division there, according to his LinkedIn, and agents also visited DOE's Office of River Protection in Richland on Thursday.

What Happens Next in Richland?

Ellaboudy made his first appearance before a federal magistrate judge in Richland on Friday, October 2. The government moved to keep him locked up. KHQ reports the court set a detention hearing for Tuesday, October 6, at 11 a.m., a status hearing for October 8, and a preliminary hearing for October 16.

The FBI caught this one, and that deserves credit. But a federal engineer with a nuclear-site badge allegedly walked into Houthi country on a government passport he was supposed to have handed back years earlier, then told CBP a story about missile defense work and a clearance he never had. The terrorism case will be decided in court. The passport question is one Congress can ask about right now.