(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former CIA officer Joshua Schulte, 35, was sentenced Thursday to 480 months in prison for crimes of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI and child pornography, the Justice Department announced in a press release.
Schulte’s theft is the largest data breach in the history of the CIA, and his transmission of that stolen information to WikiLeaks is one of the largest unauthorized disclosures of classified information in the history of the country, according to the DOJ, which accused Schulte of being a traitor.
“Joshua Schulte is a monster,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York.
However, Schulte’s defenders have told a different story. They believe he was the CIA’s patsy for the “Vault 7” leak —which included information about how the CIA used smartphones, smart TVs and almost any device that had a computer chip and was connected to the internet as listening devices.
“Prosecutors had literally no forensic evidence that Schulte had taken the data from the CIA and transferred it to WikiLeaks. But they contended that he was a computer genius so brilliant that he was able to cover his tracks,” ex-CIA employee John Kiriakou—who blew the whistle on the agency’s post-9/11 torture program—wrote after Schulte was convicted last year.
“They alleged that he leaked the information because he was a disgruntled former CIA employee who hated his boss, couldn’t get along with his coworkers and sought revenge against the agency,” he wrote.
“That was enough for the jury.”
Schulte’s charges stem from an encrypted cache of more than 3,000 child pornographic images and videos found on his home desktop computer.
Schulte’s supporters have noted that the child pornography wasn’t actually his, but that he hosted it on something akin to the 4chan and 8chan servers—something even his supporters admit is still a heinous crime.
Schulte said he never “received” or “disseminated” any child pornography personally. He claimed that child pornographers saw that his server supported “unfettered free speech,” and they exploited it to trade illegal images and videos.
Schulte’s conviction for the Vault 7 leaks came last year after his second trial. The jury on his 2020 trial couldn’t reach a decision.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
