Accused CIA leaker charged with stealing government property

The Department of Justice has formally charged the suspected CIA leaker with stealing government property and more in connection with the theft and transmission of national defense information.

The accused CIA leaker, Joshua Adam Schulte, has been in the custody of law enforcement since August 2017 when he was charged with possessing child pornography; the FBI reportedly thought it had enough evidence to charge him with stealing and leaking the Vault 7 files to WikiLeaks as early as January. Government prosecutors said in mid-May that there was a new indictment set to be filed and that superseding indictment was filed on Monday, June 18, by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

The new indictment lists 13 charges against Schulte, including charges of illegally gathering and transmitting national defense information, theft of government property, unauthorized access of a computer to obtain information from a government agency and obstruction of justice, in addition to three charges related to child pornography.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman wrote in a public statement that the accused CIA leaker, Schulte, was a former employee of the CIA and "allegedly used his access at the agency to transmit classified material to an outside organization."

"We and our law enforcement partners are committed to protecting national security information and ensuring that those trusted to handle it honor their important responsibilities," Berman wrote. "Unlawful disclosure of classified intelligence can pose a grave threat to our national security, potentially endangering the safety of Americans."

The Vault 7 data provided to WikiLeaks by a CIA leaker included close to 9,000 documents, including hacking tools and zero-day exploits for iOS, Android, Windows and more. The CIA has never admitted that the Vault 7 data was its own and the indictment itself does not refer to the stolen data being from the CIA.

However, the press release from the DOJ did write: "On March 7, 2017, Organization-1 released on the Internet classified national defense material belonging to the CIA (the "Classified Information"). In 2016, SCHULTE, who was then employed by the CIA, stole the Classified Information from a computer network at the CIA and later transmitted it to Organization-1. SCHULTE also intentionally caused damage without authorization to a CIA computer system by granting himself unauthorized access to the system, deleting records of his activities, and denying others access to the system. SCHULTE subsequently made material false statements to FBI agents concerning his conduct at the CIA."