Hacking CIA spy on trial - again

A former coder in a top secret CIA hacking unit accused of the biggest leak of classified material in the intelligence agency’s history faced a second espionage trial today. Joshua Schulte , 33, who worked for the CIA’s engineering development programme called the Operations Support Branch which created hacking tools for cyber spying was charged with handing more than two billion pages of secret data to WikiLeaks in April 2016. His first trial in February 2020 in a New York court ended with a hung jury on the most serious charges. He was found guilty of making false statements to the FBI and contempt of court. WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, published thousands of classified documents in March 2017 which exposed how the CIA had been penetrating the computer networks of foreign governments and terrorist organisations. The breach of secret material was known as the Vault 7 leak. On Schulte’s indictment in June 2018, Manhattan US attorney Geoffrey Berman said he allegedly used his access to theCIA to transmit classified material to an outside organisation. He also revealed that federal agents had discovered alleged child pornography in his New York residence. After a four-week hearing, the jury failed to record a verdict on eight charges including the transmission of national defence information and illegal gathering of classified material. The judge declared a mistrial. The huge leak was described in testimony during the 2020 trial as “the equivalent of a digital Pearl Harbour”. One CIA witness at the hearing was asked whether they recalled the agency attempting to hack into the emails of Angela Merkel, then German chancellor. Schulte left the CIA in November 2016 after falling out with his colleagues, and joined a private company as a software engineer. At his new trial, Schulte is representing himself. Meanwhile the US continues to seek the extradition of Assange from Britain on espionage charges. In April at Westmister magistrates court an extradition order was granted. But Assange remains in Belmarsh prison in London after he was convicted of breaching the Bail Act.