A former CIA software engineer has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for what the government called the biggest theft of classified information in CIA history and for possession of child sexual abuse images and videos.
The bulk of the sentence imposed on Joshua Schulte, 35, in Manhattan federal court came for an embarrassing public release of a trove of CIA secrets by WikiLeaks in 2017.
The so-called Vault 7 leak revealed how the CIA hacked Apple and Android smartphones in overseas spying operations, and efforts to turn internet-connected televisions into listening devices.
In requesting a life sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney David William Denton Jr. said Schulte was responsible for “the most damaging disclosures of classified information in American history.”
The judge said Schulte was “not driven by any sense of altruism,” but instead was “motivated by anger, spite and perceived grievance” against others at the agency who he believed had ignored his complaints about the work environment.
A mistrial was declared at Schulte’s original 2020 trial after jurors deadlocked on the most serious counts, including illegal gathering and transmission of national defense information.
In a statement afterward, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Schulte “betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history.”
The original article contains 694 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The bulk of the sentence imposed on Joshua Schulte, 35, in Manhattan federal court came for an embarrassing public release of a trove of CIA secrets by WikiLeaks in 2017.
The so-called Vault 7 leak revealed how the CIA hacked Apple and Android smartphones in overseas spying operations, and efforts to turn internet-connected televisions into listening devices.
In requesting a life sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney David William Denton Jr. said Schulte was responsible for “the most damaging disclosures of classified information in American history.”
The judge said Schulte was “not driven by any sense of altruism,” but instead was “motivated by anger, spite and perceived grievance” against others at the agency who he believed had ignored his complaints about the work environment.
A mistrial was declared at Schulte’s original 2020 trial after jurors deadlocked on the most serious counts, including illegal gathering and transmission of national defense information.
In a statement afterward, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Schulte “betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history.”
The original article contains 694 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
So, was he really just angry? Or is that a convenient lie?
We haven’t heard his side. So definitely a lie