Joshua Schulte, a former CIA employee, has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for leaking classified data to WikiLeaks in 2016.
He was also found guilty of possessing and transporting child pornography.
Schulte, a computer engineer at the CIA, stole cyber tools and source code, transferring them to WikiLeaks and attempting to cover his tracks.
“Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history,” US Attorney Damian Williams stated.
“He caused untold damage to our national security in his quest for revenge against the CIA for its response to Schulte’s security breaches while employed there.”
“When the FBI caught him, Schulte doubled down and tried to cause even more harm to this nation by waging what he described as an ‘information war’ of publishing top secret information from behind bars,” he said. “And all the while, Schulte collected thousands upon thousands of videos and images of children being subjected to sickening abuse for his own personal gratification.”
Schulte’s issues with the CIA began with a feud with management and a co-worker.
He was arrested on child pornography charges in 2017.
“Today, Joshua Schulte was rightly punished not only for his betrayal of our country, but for his substantial possession of horrific child pornographic material,” FBI assistant director James Smith stated.
“The severity of his actions is evident, and the sentence imposed reflects the magnitude of the disturbing and harmful threat posed by his criminal conduct.”
