Security News > 2020 > February > Trial Begins for Ex-CIA Worker Charged With Leaking Secrets
A prosecutor told a jury at the opening of an espionage trial Tuesday that an angry CIA employee got his vengeance by committing the agency's biggest leak of classified information ever, but a defense lawyer said her client was innocent.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Denton pointed at 30-year-old Joshua Adam Schulte in a Manhattan courtroom as he blamed him for the massive leak of secrets that was published by WikiLeaks in March 2017.
Sabrina Shroff, Schulte's defense lawyer, countered Denton's arguments by portraying the CIA as inept at securing its most sensitive files and said Schulte was an "Easy target" to try to blame because he "Antagonized almost every person there" before quitting for a $200,000-a-year position at a company in New York.
Denton said Schulte, a software developer in an elite group at the CIA, worked in a building where armed guards were posted because "Precious secrets of our armed defense" were kept there.
"The evidence simply does not show Mr. Schulte had anything to do with taking the information from the CIA and giving it to WikiLeaks."