VIDEO-Senior State Dept. official arrested for allegedly soliciting sex from a minor | Fox News

A senior State Department official in charge of federal counterterrorism programs was arrested Tuesday afternoon for allegedly soliciting sex from a minor, Fox News has learned.

Fairfax County Police officials say Daniel Rosen was arrested by a county detective about noon at his Washington, D.C. home after he allegedly sought to arrange sex with a minor. The detective, a female officer working in the county's Child Exploitation Unit, had been posing as the minor in online exchanges with Rosen, police said.

Rosen, who is the director of counterterrorism programs and policy at the State Department, was arrested and transported to a D.C. jail and charged with one count of Use of a Communications Device to Solicit a Juvenile.

He appeared Wednesday in D.C. Superior Court and waived extradition to Virginia. An online court record did not list an attorney for him, and a message seeking comment left by The Associated Press on Wednesday at a telephone number associated with his address was not immediately returned.

County police said typically, employers are notified of an arrest like this, and the State Department was indeed notified in this case. The department was moving to put Rosen on leave after the arrest.

Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said late Tuesday, "We are aware that a State Department employee has been arrested and charges have been issued.

"For issues related to Department personnel and for privacy reasons, we are not able to confirm the identity of the individual or specific charges. His security clearance will be suspended and he will be put on administrative leave while this proceeds to its end through any judicial process. We are following standard procedure in this case."

A source with Diplomatic Security, the law enforcement agency housed within the Department of State, told Fox News that law enforcement officers were "hitting [Rosen's] phones," meaning that a search warrant had been issued so police could examine the devices for additional evidence.

A State Department source on Wednesday downplayed Rosen's role in his bureau. "Dan Rosen was not responsible for homeland security and foreign policy strategy and issues; he was simply one of many office directors in the State Department's counterterrorism bureau," the source said.

Police won't say who initiated the contact in the sting operation that led to his arrest. A spokesman for the Fairfax County police said the department has a proactive child exploitation unit that makes as many as 100 arrests per year of people allegedly seeking sex with minors.

"We are not making overtures," the spokesman said. "We're in a number of chatrooms and sites. We go where the kids go and so do the bad guys."

Born in May 1970, Rosen is a resident of the District of Columbia. His LinkedIn page states that he has occupied his present position at the State Department since August 2008.

In a speech in Feb. 2012 at a seminar hosted by The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies' International Center for Terrorism Studies, Rosen, while discussing terrorism, talked about the lure of young people into extremism. “It’s not about public diplomacy, it’s not about improving the U.S. image,” he said. “It’s about reaching out to a pretty well-defined and pretty narrow audience, and that’s people that could be persuaded into crossing the boundaries between sympathy and action.”

Fox News’ Ryan O’Malley and Doug McKelway and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

James Rosen joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 1999. He currently serves as the chief Washington correspondent and hosts the online show "The Foxhole."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/25/senior-state-dept-official-arrested-for-allegedly-soliciting-sex-from-minor/