Joshua Schulte, who was convicted of orchestrating one of the largest leaks of classified material in CIA history, was sentenced to 40 years in prison recently.
Schulte, 35, handed WikiLeaks a trove of CIA computer espionage tools known as Vault 7, in what federal prosecutors called “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 U.S.”
He was convicted in July 2022 of illegally handling classified information and obstruction of justice after an earlier trial had ended in a hung jury.
WikiLeaks began publishing the classified data from the stolen CIA files, the first of 26 disclosures, on March 7, 2017.
From 2012 to 2016, Joshua Schulte, a former software developer in the Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), engaged in cyber espionage for the CIA. After a personnel dispute, Schulte abused administrator powers to regain access to a project, leading to the largest data breach in CIA history.
He stole classified information known as the “Stolen CIA Files” and transmitted them to WikiLeaks in 2016. The subsequent WikiLeaks Disclosures, classified as Vault 7 and Vault 8, severely damaged the CIA’s intelligence capabilities and national security.
Schulte was interviewed by the FBI in March 2017, repeatedly lying and diverting attention from his involvement. The FBI later found evidence of child pornography on his personal computer, collected during and after his CIA employment.
Despite court orders, Schulte disseminated protected material, planned an “information war” against the U.S. government, and sent classified information to a reporter from jail.
He was found guilty of contempt of court, making false statements, and various charges related to the theft and transmission of national defense information. In September 2023, Schulte was convicted on charges of receiving, possessing, and transporting child pornography. He was sentenced to prison and a lifetime of supervised release.
“Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “He caused untold damage to our national security in his quest for revenge against the CIA for its response to Schulte’s security breaches while employed there.”
“When the FBI caught him, Schulte doubled down and tried to cause even more harm to this nation by waging what he described as an ‘information war’ of publishing top secret information from behind bars,” said Williams. “And all the while, Schulte collected thousands upon thousands of videos and images of children being subjected to sickening abuse for his own personal gratification.”
“The outstanding investigative work of the FBI and the career prosecutors in this Office unmasked Schulte for the traitor and predator that he is and made sure that he will spend 40 years behind bars – right where he belongs,” said Williams, who is also prosecuting New Jersey US Senator Bob Menendez, who allegedly gave Egypt information about employees at the American Embassy in Cairo.