Shivani Thakur
Published on: June 15, 2022 at 17:15 IST
Prosecutors in the United States are alleging that a former CIA(Central Intelligence Agency) coder provided confidential information with the website Wikileaks following a personal feud with a coworker. Joshua Schulte, a 33-year-old former coder, claims he is being framed.
Schulte’s trial began in federal court in Manhattan, where he faces charges of illegally obtaining sensitive US government information and passing it on to Wikileaks without authorization.
His first trial, which took place in 2020, came to an end with the jury deadlocked over the main charges.
Prosecutor David Denton said in his opening statement that Schulte obtained software in 2016 used by the CIA to target foreign countries, then sent that data to WikiLeaks, which posted it in 2017.
WikiLeaks has become well known for publishing classified US information.
The Reuters news agency reported that Denton called Schulte’s alleged actions the “ultimate act of betrayal.”
According to Schulte, the CIA and FBI chose him as a scapegoat for an embarrassing leak because of previous conflicts with management. In 2016, Schulte resigned from the CIA.
“The CIA had to save face, they faced tremendous political pressure to identify the leaker,” Schulte told jurors.