A federal judge ordered former Camp Smith defense worker Benjamin Bishop to remain in custody pending trial Monday after reading a letter from the U.S. Pacific Command chief of staff and viewing some of the classified documents the FBI says it recovered from Bishop’s home.

Bishop, 59, is charged with disclosing classified national defense information to his 27-year-old girlfriend from China and for keeping classified documents in his Makakilo home.

His lawyer, Birney Bervar, said Bishop continues to declare that he is a patriotic American who will be treated fairly by the American justice system. He said the two are still discussing the possibility of appealing the judge’s ruling.

Up until his March 15 arrest, Bishop was working for a military intelligence defense contractor at Pacific Command headquarters at Camp Smith. He had previously worked at Camp Smith as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve.

The government asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Puglisi on Friday to order Bishop held without bail. Puglisi said because Bishop is not charged with espionage, the burden is on the government to prove that Bishop poses a danger to national security. He gave the prosecutor until Monday to present such evidence.

Bishop is charged with passing on national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it.

For that to qualify as espionage, the government would have had to charge Bishop with doing so to harm the United States or benefit a foreign government.

Bervar said the government has presented no evidence that Bishop’s girlfriend, a citizen of China who is in the U.S. on a student visa, passed any information Bishop may have given her to the Chinese or any other foreign government.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson gave Puglisi a sampling of some of the documents seized from Bishop’s home and a seven-page written declaration of Army Maj. Gen. Anthony Crutchfield, Pacific Command chief of staff, detailing Bishop’s knowledge and areas of expertise.

Crutchfield says Bishop is an expert in cybersecurity, defensive cybertechniques, U.S. defense operational requirements and capability gaps and has demonstrated the ability to recall numerous details, which, if disclosed to people not authorized to possess them, pose large-scale potential damage to the U.S.

He said two of the documents the FBI said it seized from Bishop’s home this month would allow a potential adversary to better understand U.S. defense strengths and vulnerabilities and to plan accordingly. He also said a photograph that shows another country’s equipment at a specific place and time reveals the capabilities and limitations of U.S. intelligence operations and analysis.