CIA Vault 7 Whistleblower Hit With New Leaking Charges

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors filed a rewritten indictment against the 30-year-old man said to be behind the largest leak of classified information in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency - Joshua Schulte, who allegedly gave WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange the material for the “Vault 7” releases.

The news comes just hours after a letter from Schulte to the judge presiding over his case pleading for something to be done about the conditions he faces in pre-trial detention. Between being cut off from access to legal counsel and shoved into the "box" at a notorious prison for unspecified reasons, Schulte described the conditions as "unconstitutional."

Schulte was arrested in August 2017 after allegedly leaking more than 8,000 CIA documents to WikiLeaks, which were published in March of that year. Initially, Schulte was not charged for anything related to that matter, but for child pornography.

It wasn't until June of 2018 that a 13-count superseding indictment was issued against him, alleging theft of classified national defense information.

One of the most renowned whistleblowers in CIA history, John Kiriakou, said Schulte may face a difficult road back to good graces in the public eye. Kiriakou is a 15-year CIA veteran who blew the whistle on the agency's unconstitutional "enhanced interrogation" program, also known as torture. He also hosts a show on Radio Sputnik called Loud & Clear.

"I believe that the Justice Department learned a lesson during the Obama administration whereby whistleblowers had great public sympathy once they were charged," Kiriakou told Sputnik News.

"That sympathy often lead to acquittals, such as in the case of NSA's Thomas Drake, or short sentences, like in my case. What the Justice Department has done to mitigate that is too frequently add child pornography charges to new cases. We saw this in the case of Matthew DeHart and now in the case of the Vault 7 whistleblower. In the DeHart case, the judge acknowledged that there was no evidence of child pornography. None," he said.

https://sputniknews.com/us/201811011069405779-CIA-Vault-7-New-Charges/