Judge Rejects Former CIA Coder's Try to Dismiss Hacking Charges

He is accused of the largest leak of classified information in CIA history.

Mar 25th, 2021

Larry Neumeister

NEW YORK (AP) — A former CIA employee cannot get espionage charges against him dismissed on the grounds that there weren’t enough Hispanic or Black individuals on the grand jury that indicted him, a judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty issued his ruling in the case against Joshua Schulte, finding that there was nothing illegal about a suburban grand jury in White Plains returning the indictment during the coronavirus pandemic rather than a grand jury in Manhattan that normally would have done so.

Schulte faces an October trial on charges that he leaked a massive trove of CIA hacking tools to WikiLeaks.

Schulte, 32, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Schulte's lawyers had argued that nine criminal charges alleging that Schulte leaked national defense information to WikiLeaks should be dismissed because the grand jury did not reflect a fair cross-section of the Black and Hispanic populations in the community.

Crotty, though, said the reliance on a White Plains grand jury rather than one seated in Manhattan was necessitated by an “external force,” the pandemic, rather than an effort to exclude certain segments of the population from being empaneled.

He called the decision by prosecutors to seek indictment in White Plains “entirely proper."

A lawyer for Schultz did not immediately comment.

Prosecutors say the 2017 release of secrets by WikiLeaks resulted from the largest leak of classified information in CIA history.

Schulte worked as a coder at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where some of the CIA’s digital sleuths design computer code to spy on foreign adversaries.

A jury last year deadlocked on espionage charges, though it convicted Schulte of less serious charges of contempt of court and making false statements. Prosecutors sought a retrial.

Wednesday's ruling may foreshadow the outcome of a similar request to toss out charges in the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the ex-girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein charged with procuring teenage girls in the 1990s for him to sexually abuse.

Lawyers for Maxwell, who has pleaded not guilty in a case presided over by a different judge, argued in pretrial motions earlier this year that the White Plains grand jury that returned an indictment against her after her July arrest did not include enough Hispanic and Black grand jurors.

Maxwell, 59, faces a July trial.

https://www.manufacturing.net/home/news/21342844/judge-rejects-excia-workers-try-to-dismiss-hacking-charges

Retired Green Beret, arecent CIA contractor, denied bond after allegedly taking part inCapitol riot

Kyle Rempfer 1 day ago

A retired Green Beret who prosecutors say worked for the CIA since leaving the Army was denied bond Tuesday by a Washington, D.C., judge after being charged in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Retired Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey A. McKellop, a former member of 3rd Special Forces Group, was accused of using a flagpole like a spear against a police officer in D.C., as well as assaulting three other officers.

McKellop, who left the service in 2010, worked as recently as 2018 for the CIA and the State Department, prosecutors said in recent court filings. A person familiar with his case previously said McKellop worked as a contractor in Iraq.

At about 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, McKellop allegedly donned a helmet and gas mask before moving toward D.C. Metropolitan Police lines as officers attempted to prevent a mob of rioters from breaching the Capitol building, according to a criminal complaint.

Police body cameras caught McKellop pushing officers, trying to grab a riot control spray canister from one and throwing a flagpole like a spear at another, causing a laceration to that officer’s face, the complaint stated.

Greg Hunter and Seth Peritz, two defense attorneys for McKellop, cited his 22 years in uniform and his three Bronze Star medals as they argued in favor of his release from jail until trial.

McKellop, who wore body armor during the Jan. 6 events, only did so to protect himself from counterprotesters, his defense attorneys said in court filings. McKellop also voluntarily surrendered after learning the FBI was seeking him, his defense team added.

Scott Steiert, a fellow Special Forces veteran, said in a letter submitted to the court that he invited McKellop to the rally prior to the Jan. 6 riot because he feared protesters opposing then-President Donald Trump could attack him.

“You must understand Jeff’s personality to know why he brought body armor, gas masks, water, and medical kit,” Steiert’s letter reads. “He is always prepared for the worst-case scenario, that is what his SF training, and roughly 20 years deploying overseas (about 8 of those years protecting State Department and government officials) has taught him.”

Steiert added that he was “almost 100 percent certain” McKellop did not lead anyone, participate in any groups or “plan on doing what he did on Jan. 6.”

But assistant U.S. attorneys Daniel Honold and Mary Dohrmann argued that McKellop’s “deliberate and violent assaults on multiple police officers” protecting the Capitol weighed “heavily in favor of detention.”

The U.S. attorneys wrote in a March 19 filing that McKellop’s military training and ”employment in the intelligence community” should have given him reason to know the acts he allegedly committed were wrong.

“The defendant received extensive military and combat training — including close-quarters combat training — dating back to the 1990′s,” the U.S. attorneys wrote. “He has deployed overseas as recently as 2018 as a contractor working for the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of State.”

Former special operations personnel are often hired to provide security at diplomatic consulates or intelligence stations. What role McKellop played overseas was not immediately clear.

McKellop enlisted in 1987 as an infantryman before becoming a Green Beret radioman roughly a decade later. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2002 and again in 2004. He also deployed to Iraq in 2003 and 2005.

“Such blatant disregard of the law and the authority of a lawful government, despite having held positions of trust and power in the United States government for many years, weighs in favor of detention,” U.S. attorneys wrote.

MORE HERE: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/03/24/retired-green-beret-a-recent-cia-contractor-denied-bond-after-taking-part-in-capitol-riot/

>>13301271

puffs chest out "Maga Qanon Patriots gotta go Hot!'' is like the exact opposite of Trusting the Plan!

Honk! Honk!

Former CIA director recalls how Catholic upbringing influenced career

The former altar boy had to learn the liturgical prayers in Latin when I was barely 10 years old

Kurt Jensen, Catholic News Service Updated: March 06, 2021 09:57 AM GMT

"Undaunted: My Fight Against America's Enemies, at Home and Abroad" by John O. Brennan. Celadon Books (New York, 2020). 464 pp., $30.

One of the principal themes of "Undaunted," the engaging memoir of former CIA director John O. Brennan, is that a sound Catholic education gave him the moral fiber that could turn into his armor and shield in government service.

One of those moments came in a February 2016 National Public Radio interview. Brennan writes that he could easily handle a discussion of topics such as harsh interrogation tactics and covert training of foreign rebel forces. But when there was a passing reference to the CIA "stealing secrets," he blew his top.

"I never liked how some CIA officers cavalierly used the term 'stealing,' which, perhaps because of my strict Catholic upbringing, I always associated with wrongdoing." So he "immediately overreacted" by saying, "We don't steal secrets. Everything we do is consistent with U.S. law. We uncover, we discover, we reveal, we obtain, we elicit, we solicit."

And of course, that flash of temper became the lead when other news outlets reported on the interview "and was mischaracterized as an admission or mistaken belief that the CIA was not in the espionage business. Nothing could have been further from the truth."

This memoir was hampered by President Donald Trump's refusal to allow Brennan access to his own CIA documents. As a result, Brennan often doesn't sound as frank as he'd like to be.

Brennan, CIA director from 2013 to 2017, shares mostly good-natured memories of his years at St. Joseph's High School for Boys in West New York, New Jersey, in the early 1970s.

The former altar boy "had to learn the liturgical prayers in Latin when I was barely 10 years old. While a bit rusty, I can still recite the 'Confiteor' in the language of ancient Rome."

It was this disciplined life, combined with his education at Fordham University's campus in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, that prepared him, he writes, for dealing with the 45th president:

"My jaded view of Trump was reinforced by his performance in the run-up to the November (2016) election and his disparagement of the intelligence community after he won. While I had witnessed many politicians over the years make hollow campaign promises and specious claims about their own accomplishments and the failings of their opponents and previous administrations, no individual came close to Trump's dishonesty, unabashed self-aggrandizement and demagogic rhetoric."

Brennan acknowledges he "badly underestimated" Trump's appeal to voters.

>>13301318

And he sometimes, given the distance of time, leaves out context for his high school experiences. One of his anecdotes would have been improved by it.

Brennan writes of his "heavily sheltered" life being "forever ruptured" when he was 16. Christian Brother Richard Greene took his English literature class at St. Joseph's to a New York theater to see Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," the film adaptation of Catholic author Anthony Burgess' 1963 novel about free will.

In his memory, it was a transgressive experience: "It was an act of brotherly defiance of the Catholic Church, which had condemned the movie and forbade Catholics to see it because of its raw sex and violence."

Its original Motion Picture Association rating was X, although by 1971, the rating had lost its impact. Harry Herx, writing for the U.S. bishops' Office of Motion Pictures and Broadcasting, concluded: "Only Burgess' marvelous language, and Kubrick's grandiose style have made it seem at all fresh and significant. Excessive violence and nudity in a sexual context."

What was shocking at the time still has the power to traumatize audiences, and, in fact, is more offensive now than it was then, since it has the effect of trivializing what's being shown. In the film's first 20 minutes, a roving gang of oddly costumed thugs destroys property and beats up vulnerable people, concluding with a stylized and violent rape as Alex (Malcolm McDowell) performs a soft-shoe dance while warbling "Singin' in the Rain."

The ironic counterpoint and violence were undoubtedly more than the class had bargained for.

Brother Richard is recalled by author Anthony DePalma as the kind of teacher who, in the course of keeping students engaged with the outside world, let them play a Jimi Hendrix album in class so they could discuss the lyrics. So he finds it "quite conceivable that students asked about 'Clockwork' and organized an outing."

Brennan writes that it helped bring on a "newfound agnosticism," but adds, "little did I realize at the time that my high school teachers had prepared me well for my future intelligence profession, where assumptions and untested acceptance of purported 'facts' can produce national security disasters."

https://www.ucanews.com/news/former-cia-director-recalls-how-catholic-upbringing-influenced-career/91665#

CLOCKWORK BRENNAN

Even a blind shill finds a nut every now and then.