- Written by Max Mazza
- BBC News, Seattle
image source, Getty Images
A former US Army sergeant has been arrested on charges of illegally retaining classified information and attempting to provide it to a Chinese spy agency.
Joseph Schmidt, 29, is accused of producing numerous documents and Google searches documenting attempts to provide U.S. national security secrets to China.
Washington state prosecutor Tessa Gorman said his “attempt to betray our country” was “shocking.”
He was arrested at the San Francisco airport after arriving from Hong Kong.
Schmidt was an active-duty soldier from 2015 to 2020, primarily at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in western Washington.
He primarily worked in the intelligence community and had access to top-secret documents, the highest level of intelligence in the U.S. government.
Investigators said the suspect conducted online research on how to seek asylum in China and offered to serve as an “interrogator” at the Chinese consulate in Turkey and Chinese intelligence services.
“I currently have top secret clearance and would like to speak with someone in the government to share this information with you if possible,” he wrote in one email to the Istanbul consulate. It is said that he wrote it in
He is accused of creating a Microsoft Word document titled “Highly Confidential.”
Prosecutors said the title of the 23-page document is written in Chinese, but “almost everything is written in English.”
Another document is titled “Important Information to Share with the Chinese Government.”
According to a web search, he viewed several spy forums on the social media app Reddit, including “What do real spies do and how are they recruited?” It turns out that he read an article titled “10 Countries I Hate.”
After completing his military service, he stayed in Turkey for about a month and then went to China. He did not return to the United States until arriving in San Francisco on Friday.
“Our military members take an oath to defend our country and our Constitution,” said Gorman, acting attorney for the Western District of Washington.
“In that context, this former military man’s alleged actions are shocking. He not only attempted to provide national defense information, but also provided information that would help a foreign adversary gain access to the Department of Defense’s secure computer networks.” That is what I am trying to do.”
Mr. Schmidt is charged with attempting to provide national defense information and possessing national defense information. If he is convicted, he could face decades in prison.
It is not clear whether he has retained an attorney who can comment on his behalf.
Both men allegedly paid thousands of dollars for blueprints, technical manuals and diagrams for ships and radar systems.
