CIA employee leaked intel on US hacking tools to WikiLeaks

The department introduced a 13-count superseding indictment against Joshua Adam Schulte on Monday, accusing him of illegally gathering classified information on national defense and sending it for “an organization.”

The data was published by WikiLeaks in March 2017.

“Schulte utterly betrayed this nation and downright violated his victims,” read a press release by FBI official William Sweeney Jr. “As an employee of the CIA, Schulte took an oath to protect this country, but he blatantly endangered it by the transmission of Classified Information."

Schulte came under suspicion last month but the prosecutors had to wait because they didn’t have sufficient evidence to bring charges.

The Justice Department refused to name WikiLeaks in its press release about the indictment. However, attorneys involved in a child pornography case with connection to Schulte confirmed earlier this year that the 29-year-old was indeed the focus a investigation concerning dispersal of CIA secrets to WikiLeaks.

The former CIA employee is currently held in custody on child pornography charges. He is suspected of leaking information known as “Vault 7” in what is believed to be one of the biggest unauthorized releases of the espionage agency.

Schulte is also accused of misleading the probe by lying to investigators, obstruction of justice, theft of government property and transmitting a harmful computer program.

He insists that he is innocent and the CIA targeted him because he was the only member of his team to leave the agency after reporting "incompetent management" to its inspector general.

Some current and former intelligence officials believe that the Vault 7 disclosures could cause more damage than those done by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.

During his tenure at NSA, Snowden downloaded tens of thousands of classified top secret US documents. They exposed the extent of US spying across the world, on friends and foes alike.