On Wednesday (July 13), a former software engineer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was found guilty on federal charges accusing him of orchestrating the worst theft of sensitive information in CIA history.
In his closing remarks, Joshua Schulte, who opted to stand his own defense in a New York City retrial, claimed that the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation used him as a convenient fall guy for the embarrassing WikiLeaks publication of a large amount of CIA secrets in 2017. Friday marked the start of the jury's deliberations.
The CIA's hacking of Apple and Android smartphones for overseas espionage missions and attempts to convert Internet-connected televisions into listening devices were both made public by the so-called Vault 7 leak. At the agency's Langley, Virginia, headquarters, Schulte had worked as a coder and contributed to the development of the hacking tools before his arrest.
The 33-year-old Schulte, according to the prosecution, was inspired to plan the leak because he thought the CIA had humiliated him by denying his complaints about the workplace. As a result, they claimed, he attempted to "burn to the ground" the very project he had assisted the agency in developing.
He continued his crimes while incarcerated and awaiting trial, authorities said, by attempting to leak more top-secret information from jail while waging an "information war" against the government.
Schulte said in his closing that he was singled out despite the fact that "hundreds of people had access to (the information) ... Hundreds of people could have stolen it"." "The government's case is riddled with reasonable doubt," he added. "There's simply no motive here."
In response, U.S. Attorney David Denton said there was ample evidence Schulte stole a crucial backup computer file.
"He's the one who broke into that system," Denton said. "He's the one who took that backup, the backup he sent to WikiLeaks."
"This is someone who's hiding the things that he's done wrong," Denton said.
US District Judge Jesse Furman praised Schulte for his closing argument after the jury had heard the case.
After the jury had left the courtroom, the judge commented, "Mr. Schulte, that was impressively done." "Depending on what happens today, you could become a defense attorney in the future."
At Schulte's initial 2020 trial, a mistrial was declared due to juror impasse on the most serious allegations, including the unlawful gathering and sharing of national defense material. Last year, Schulte informed the judge that he intended to represent himself in the retrial.
Schulte has been imprisoned without being granted bail since 2018. He said in court documents last year that he had been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment while waiting for his two trials in solitary confinement in a cell that was full of vermin in a correctional facility where inmates are treated like "caged animals."
