A former employee of the CIA has been convicted for leaking the largest classified data in the agency’s history. A federal jury found him guilty of nine counts, including illegal gathering of national defense information.
Joshua Schulte, who worked as a software engineer in the CIA, was accused of leaking classified data to WikiLeaks in 2016. During the closing arguments to jurors, Schulte, who chose to defend himself at a New York City retrial, accused the CIA and FBI of making him a scapegoat for the WikiLeaks release.
‘He was disgruntled with the CIA for ignoring his complaints about the work environment’
Schulte claimed he was singled out even though “hundreds of people had access to (the information). … Hundreds of people could have stolen it.” “The government’s case is riddled with reasonable doubt,” he added. “There’s simply no motive here.”
The prosecutors alleged that the 33-year-old man had the motivation to leak secrets. Because he was disgruntled with the CIA for ignoring his complaints about the work environment. So, he tried “to burn to the ground” the very work he had helped the agency to create, they said.
Decision favoring CIA
The US District Judge, Jesse M. Furman, found him guilty of all nine counts. It included illegally gathering and transmitting national defense information and obstructing a criminal investigation and grand jury proceeding, among other charges.
Schulte still awaits trial on charges of possessing and transporting child pornography. That is why The judge did not immediately set the sentencing date. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.
About the data leak
The case pertains to the ‘Vault 7 leak’ which revealed how the CIA hacked Apple and Android smartphones in overseas spying operations, and a bid to turn internet-connected televisions into listening devices. Before his arrest, Schulte helped to create the hacking tools as a coder at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Schulte has been jailed without bail since 2018. Last year, he complained in court papers that he was a victim of cruel and unusual punishment, awaiting two trials in solitary confinement inside a vermin-infested cell of a jail unit where inmates are treated like “caged animals.”