Who is Joshua Schulte? Former CIA engineer convicted for biggest classified data theft in agency

Former CIA employee Joshua Schulte was convicted on all counts for leaking classified data to WikiLeaks. He reportedly shared the "'Vault 7' cyber-warfare tools" with the platform. The incident has been referred to as the largest leak in CIA history. Meanwhile, Joshua Schulte has denied the allegations.

On Wednesday, July 13, Schulte was convicted of illegally gathering and transmitting national defense information, and obstructing a criminal investigation and grand jury proceedings, among other charges.

In a statement, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, said:

"He had access to some of the country's most valuable intelligence-gathering cyber tools used to battle terrorist organizations and other malign influences around the globe."

Attorney Williams also stated that Schulte's actions had "a devastating effect" on the intelligence community since he provided critical intelligence to those who wished to do them harm.

According to prosecutors, Joshua Schulte chose to take this step because of his resentment towards the agency. They further added that he was seeking revenge because of a conflict at his workplace. Reportedly, Schulte's employer paid no attention to his complaints.

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CIA engineer Joshua Schulte allegedly went rogue due to workplace conflicts

Before quitting the agency in 2016, Joshua Schulte worked as a computer engineer within the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence.

However, he began having problems at work with management and a co-worker a year before he left the agency.. He even filed a restraining order against the co-worker as per court records. Both Schulte and the co-worker were transferred after this.

Schulte was assigned the task of creating cyber tools at the agency. However, he became upset when CIA officials began considering a contractor for the same task, as per prosecutors.

Speaking about Schulte's actions, Attorney Williams said:

"When Schulte began to harbor resentment toward the CIA, he covertly collected those tools and provided them to WikiLeaks, making some of our most critical intelligence tools known to the public -- and therefore, our adversaries."

He added:

"Today, Schulte has been convicted for one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history."

Investigations revealed that Schulte stole cyber tools and source codes and transferred them to WikiLeaks before erasing all evidence of the same. A year after he quit the CIA, WikiLeaks released the first chapter in the Vault 7 leaks series in March 2017.

WikiLeaks also publicly stated that the anonymous source who shared the data wanted to raise policy questions related to the way CIA operated.

Authorities maintain that Schulte tried to transfer more data from the phone he smuggled into jail under the name Jason Bourne, a fictional intelligence operative.

Joshua Schulte has been serving jail time since 2018. His original case was declared a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict on most of the serious charges.