7 March 2017, NYT: WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/charges-cia-breach-vault-7.html
June 18, 2018
New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7
By Adam Goldman
WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors have charged a former software engineer at the center of a huge C.I.A. breach with stealing classified information, theft of government property and lying to the F.B.I.
The engineer, Joshua A. Schulte, 29, of New York, had been the main suspect in one of the worst losses of classified documents [1] in the spy agency's history.
Government investigators suspect that he provided WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization, with a stolen archive of documents detailing the C.I.A.'s hacking operations, but they had not initially charged him [2] in that crime.
The breach, known as the Vault 7 leak, was a major embarrassment to the C.I.A. and set off a furious hunt to identify who was behind the 2017 disclosure.
Mr. Schulte had been charged last year in New York with possession of child pornography. But in the new indictment, [3] prosecutors accused him of repeatedly violating the Espionage Act.
According to federal court documents, prosecutors said Mr. Schulte illegally obtained classified information in 2016 and then provided it to an organization, WikiLeaks, that posted it online.
Prosecutors also charged him with transmitting malicious computer code and improperly gaining access to a delicate government computer system. The authorities said he granted himself access to the system and tried to conceal his activities. Prosecutors also accused him of copyright infringement.
Prosecutors said the crimes occurred in Virginia, where the C.I.A. is based.
The new charges are not entirely unexpected; prosecutors said in May that they had planned to file a new indictment in the next 45 days. Mr. Schulte's lawyers had urged the government to make a decision regarding the Vault 7 leak charges.
"As the evidence is flushed out, it will become clear that Mr. Schulte is hardly the villain the government makes him out to be," Sabrina P. Shroff, his public defender in New York, said in a statement on Monday.
His family claims he did not do anything wrong.
Mr. Schulte worked in the C.I.A.'s Engineering Development Group, which designed the hacking tools used by its Center for Cyber Intelligence. In late 2016, he left the spy agency and moved to New York to work for Bloomberg.
In a previous statement, WikiLeaks said the source of the damaging disclosure had hoped to "initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons."
Prosecutors have also weighed charges against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said that arresting Mr. Assange was a priority for the Justice Department. Mr. Assange believes he is a journalist, a claim that could complicate a prosecution.
Mr. Assange continues to live in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he had fled to in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden on accusations of rape. Last year, Sweden's prosecutors announced that they had abandoned their attempt to extradite him.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/wikileaks-cia-hacking.html
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/us/cia-hacking-tools-leak.html
[3] https://static01.nyt.com/files/2018/us/politics/cia-wikileaks-indictment.pdf