Ex-CIA agent convicted in Wikileaks espionage trial News
JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Ex-CIA agent convicted in Wikileaks espionage trial

Former CIA Agent Joshua Schulte was convicted on espionage charges in federal court Wednesday for providing national defense information to the website Wikileaks. Schulte was charged in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York back in 2018 with a 13 count superseding indictment which included espionage charges, child pornography charges, and a copyright infringement charge, among others. He was found guilty on all nine espionage counts.

Schulte was convicted of illegally gathering and transmitting lawfully and unlawfully possessed national defense information. He was also convicted of theft of government property, obstruction of justice, and making false statements.

Schulte was arrested after Wikileaks published a series of documents detailing the CIA’s electronic surveillance behavior in 2017. This collection of documents is commonly referred to as “Vault 7.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) said that “Schulte was aware that the collateral damage of his retribution could pose an extraordinary threat to this nation if made public, rendering them essentially useless, having a devastating effect on our intelligence community by providing critical intelligence to those who wish to do us harm.” The DOJ claims that Schulte transmitted the information when he “began to harbor resentment towards the CIA” .

Schulte is looking at a maximum of 80 years in prison, but no sentencing date has been set.

Schulte is still awaiting trial for the child pornography charges he faces.