Joshua Schulte is a former Central Intelligence Agency computer engineer in the agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology and the source of the 2017 Vault 7 WikiLeaks disclosure — the largest public release of CIA offensive technical capabilities to date. He is currently serving a 40-year U.S. federal prison sentence on espionage charges and maintains his innocence.[1]
Disclosure
In 2017 Schulte allegedly downloaded the “crown jewels” of the agency’s science-and-technology directorate and transmitted them to WikiLeaks. The resulting publication ran to thousands of pages and documented capabilities including remote takeover of internet-connected vehicles, conversion of smart-television speakers into covert microphones, and false-flag attribution tooling. The motive, as charged by federal prosecutors and described by John Kiriakou, was workplace grievance: “He was apparently allegedly a disgruntled engineer. He didn’t like his boss. He didn’t like his co-workers. They didn’t like him.”[1][2] Kiriakou describes Schulte as probably on the autism spectrum, a CIA hacker who didn’t get along with his co-workers or his supervisor, and says the CIA zeroed in on him as the Vault 7 suspect largely for that reason.[3] He separately says Schulte was very unpopular in his office — he would throw Nerf basketballs at coworkers while they were working — and had a bad relationship with his branch chief.[4] Kiriakou says whistleblower Schulte’s revelations proved that the CIA — and presumably MOSSAD — can remotely hack a car’s computer system to take control of it, and can reverse-engineer Smart TV speakers to act as microphones even when the television appears to be off.[5][6]
The Vault 7 source
John Kiriakou names Joshua Schulte as the source, via WikiLeaks, of the Vault 7 revelations that exposed the CIA’s car-hacking, smart-TV surveillance and the Marble Framework.[7]
Two trials, an FBI agent who couldn’t crack the hard drive
Kiriakou says Schulte’s first trial resulted in a hung jury on most counts; he was acquitted of two “process felony” counts — such as making a false statement and obstruction of justice — and was being retried in the Southern District of New York.[8] He notes Schulte fired his public defenders and chose to represent himself at trial — a decision Kiriakou considered a serious mistake, even though he thought Schulte’s underlying defense was strong.[9][10] Kiriakou says an FBI agent testified at the first trial that he could not confirm what was on Schulte’s seized hard drive because it was encrypted and could not be cracked.[11] He also says prosecutors originally charged Schulte with multiple counts of child pornography — kept separate from the Vault 7 trial — then dropped those charges after conceding they had no evidence for them.[12] At retrial, Kiriakou says, Schulte was convicted on all charges and now faces 80 years in prison.[10]
Kiriakou says Schulte was sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a facility with no heat in winter, water that freezes in the toilet, no windows, and 24-hour isolation, with prisoners permitted one phone call a month — to a lawyer only.[13] He says Schulte was placed under Special Administrative Measures barring contact with family, visitors, and media, a fact that became public only through a letter Schulte wrote to the judge, which the judge then unsealed.[14] Kiriakou identifies two Communications Management Units in the United States — at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, and the supermax in Marion, Illinois — and says the latter also houses drone whistleblower Daniel Hale and hacktivist Marty Gottesfeld.[15]