The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has issued a statement regarding Schulte, who leaked information to WikiLeaks. Shulte, who worked as a computer programmer at the CIA and gave WikiLeaks 8,761 pages of documents, including information on how the agency infiltrated Apple and Android software as well as Smart-enabled televisions, was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Prosecutors said the information leaked by Shulte, who was tried for allegedly committing the largest information leak in CIA history, damaged the CIA's ability to gather intelligence, put CIA employees, programs and materials at risk, and cost the agency millions of dollars.
Prosecutors said Schulte passed stolen information to Wikileaks in 2016 and lied to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) employees about the leaked information, adding that the former CIA employee possessed images of child abuse.
Prosecutors said Schulte leaked the information because of disagreements at work and that the programmer harmed the country's national security while seeking revenge.
Schulte has denied the accusations against him.
The 8,761-page information package on the CIA's cyber activities leaked by Schulte, who was found guilty in three different cases in 2020, 2022 and 2023 for leaking information to WikiLeaks, was published on WikiLeaks in 2017 as "Vault-7".
