Prosecutors called it the “digital Pearl Harbor.”
In a domestic espionage case that did not receive the public attention it deserved, a former CIA employee who worked in an elite computer intelligence unit was sentenced to four decades in prison for crimes that included exposing U.S. secrets in the world of cyber intelligence.
The true extent of the damage may never be known.
According to the Associated Press, Joshua Schulte, 35, was sentenced in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday to 40 years in prison for publishing top-secret information about the CIA's methods of collecting information in the computer world.
Schulte was also sentenced for possession of child pornography, according to the AP. (Now, who would believe that a man who betrayed his country to WikiLeaks could have other character flaws as well?)
ABC News reported that prosecutors described the case as a “digital Pearl Harbor.”
“We will likely never know the full extent of the damage, but I have no doubt it was enormous,” Judge Jesse M. Foreman said during sentencing, according to the Associated Press.
⚡️A former CIA employee was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the largest theft of classified information in the history of American intelligence, — CNN.
A few years ago, Joshua Schulte provided WikiLeaks with confidential documents related to the intelligence hacking tools used to hack… pic.twitter.com/9NyhLEX78U
– Flash (@Flash_news_ua) February 2, 2024
So, Schulte joins the black wall of shame that commemorates other high-tech traitors in 21st-century American history: Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Reality Winner.
Naturally, Snowden used his access to the NSA to disseminate American cyber secrets to the international media. He had an Academy Award-winning documentary made about him in the West, and lives as a guest of the Russian government in the East.
Regardless, it is true that there are conservatives today who praise Snowden for revealing secrets about the US government's misuse of technology to spy on its citizens. But if conservatives want to start endorsing disloyal behavior because it comes from the “right” side, that's a recipe for political defeat purely by numbers. there Lots of traitors On the left – conservatives will never compete.
Moreover, it is like praising the terrorist who blew up a house to reveal what was in the basement. There are better ways to do things.
Chelsea Manning (née Bradley Manning) is a former Army soldier who betrayed the country by sending troves of secret and sensitive military intelligence to WikiLeaks for the whole world to see. Manning was lucky enough, smart enough, or mentally ill enough to claim to be a trans woman living in a man's body — which didn't make her just a trans woman. A famous reason For liberals, he undoubtedly helped convince then-President Barack Obama to commute Manning's 35-year prison sentence to one of seven years in prison.
Obama's decision came in January 2017, one of his final decisions as president. As NBC News reported at the time, this effectively resulted in Manning being released with time served.
Manning has since become a published author and columnist in Democratic politics. (Manning's bid for the Senate in 2018 received significant media attention, but ended in a landslide defeat in the primary by incumbent Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin.)
Then there's Reality Winr, an Air Force veteran and NSA contractor who leaked information in 2017 about supposed Russian interference in the US election. She was sentenced to more than five years in prison, but was released in 2021 for good behavior, the New York Times reported.
She wrote a play about her interview with the FBI. (Shockingly, it never made it off Broadway.)
And now comes Joshua Schulte, who, according to news reports, can't even claim to have noble intentions behind his traitorous behavior. Snowden claimed he was concerned about government power, and Manning and Winner expressed concern about government behavior.
Schulte was apparently concerned that the CIA's human resources staff was not paying enough attention to his complaints at work.
As the Washington Post said:
Prosecutors said he was motivated to leak classified information by dissatisfaction with the CIA's handling of his work-related complaints. “He was angered by personal conflicts, being transferred to a different branch, not being given a certain level of access to CIA systems and similar issues,” prosecutor Damien Williams said in court documents.
“He chose to burn our nation's security to the ground because he didn't get his way,” Williams said, adding that Schulte “had a comfortable upbringing and family support.”
According to CNN, Schulte's problems arose in 2015, when he “began feuding with management and a co-worker.” Schulte filed a restraining order against the co-worker and they were both transferred.
CNN also reported that “Schulte became enraged when CIA officials wanted to hire a contractor to build an electronic tool similar to the one he was building, prosecutors said.”
So he leaked information to WikiLeaks in 2016. It was published in 2017, and Schulte was jailed in 2018, first on child pornography charges, then for the leaks. His 40-year prison sentence includes “illegally collecting and transmitting information related to national defense” and possessing more than 10,000 images of child pornography. But the bulk of it is dedicated to intelligence crimes.
He was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison on child pornography charges, according to the Associated Press.
It was his second trial. The 2020 effort ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked on the most serious charges, the New York Post reported.
He was convicted of the leak in 2022. The conviction on the child pornography charge came in September 2023, USA Today reported.
In a way, it is not surprising that Schulte's case has not received more attention – he clearly lacks any qualities that the official media could celebrate.
He wasn't blowing the whistle on NSA abuses a la Snowden, or bringing up the criminal behavior of Americans in Afghanistan as Manning intended, nor was he an attractive young woman with a fancy name like Reality Winner.
He's just a disaffected patient who loves child pornography.
He's just a man whose complaints about his workplace led him to reveal information about the CIA that the country's deadliest enemies would like to know. He committed what the prosecutor described as “the most damaging disclosure of classified information in American history.”
But the establishment media is more than willing to move on.
After all, it's not like he's wearing a MAGA hat or something.
This article originally appeared in The Western Journal.
