A jury has reportedly found a former CIA programmer charged with a massive data leak to WikiLeaks guilty of false statements and contempt of court but was deadlocked on more serious charges including the illegal collection and transmission of national defense information.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a federal jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether or not a former software engineer at the CIA was responsible for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, the programmer was however convicted of lesser charges related to the leak.
The former CIA programmer, Joshua Schulte, was convicted of making false statements and contempt of court which related to Schulte’s conduct following the March 7, 2017 publication of CIA materials, dubbed Vault 7 by WikiLeaks. On Monday, the jury said that it was deadlocked on the remaining eight counts which included serious charges related to the illegal collection and transmission of national defense information.
Over the course of a four-week trial in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors presented evidence including witness testimony, internal CIA communications, and computer records in efforts to prove that Schulte stole the classified documents and gave them to WikiLeaks in 2016. Schulte’s lawyers suggested that the CIA had pinned the leak on Schulte simply because he was a difficult employee who had antagonized colleagues and superiors at the CIA.
On Friday afternoon, the 11 jurors sent a note to U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty saying they were “aligned on two counts” but at an “impasse on the remaining counts.” Breitbart News reported extensively on the Vault 7 leaks which detailed a number of tools used by the CIA to monitor and perform software exploits on specific targets. WikiLeaks claims that one tool dubbed “Cherry Blossom” was developed and implemented with the help of the US nonprofit Stanford Research Institute (SRI International).
Read more about the Vault 7 leaks at Breitbart News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com