Ex-CIA Employee Charged In Major Leak of Agency Hacking Tools (washingtonpost.com)

schwit1 shares a report from The Washington Post: Federal prosecutors on Monday charged a former CIA employee with violations of the Espionage Act (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) and related crimes in connection with the leak last year of a collection of hacking tools that the agency used for spy operations overseas.

Joshua Adam Schulte, who worked for a CIA group that designs computer code to spy on foreign adversaries, was charged in a 13-count superseding indictment with illegally gathering and transmitting national defense information and other related counts in connection with what is considered to be one of the most significant leaks in CIA history. The indictment accused Schulte of causing sensitive information to be transmitted to an organization, which is not named in the indictment but is thought to be WikiLeaks.

Comments

Re:Article Text

[king neckbeard]

Or, even simpler, they planted it there in the first place, and already knew the passwords.

Re:But her emails!

[Sarten-X]

I realize I am just feeding a troll, but if you really believe that, you really are an idiot.

Well, I can say the same thing, I suppose. Either way, here we go...

It is not an emolument for someone to stay in a hotel that Trump happens to own. Presidents are allowed to own businesses and stock and property and other things that might be accretive to their net worth.

That is true, but that's not what's causing complaints. Previous Presidents have taken steps to ensure that they are separated from the business operations while in office, so they would have no way to know who or what they're doing non-government business with. Yes, cash might come from a foreign country into a Presdent's account eventually, but he won't know where it came from, and couldn't verify it if a foreign dignitary tried to claim it.

Instead, President Trump is hosting guests directly at his properties, charging them the usual high rates, and sending it directly into accounts he controls. There is no attempt to appear like he's separating his personal business from his administration. To countries with looser standards on corruption and bribery, it appears that putting money in Trump's pocket is an easy way to get close to him. Even if he's being perfectly honest and doesn't accept bribes (such as by having the personal moral fortitude to not check his hotels' guest lists), it still appears to the rest of the world that he is. That damage to America's reputation is exactly what the emoluments clause is intended to prevent.

It is also not illegal to collude with a foreign government. In fact, it is the President's FUCKING JOB to collude with foreign governments, on many many things, from trade to aid to research to defense.

As others noted, yes, the President is authorized to collaborate on certain activities. However, one of the things expressly forbidden is foreign interference in elections. The other requirement is that such negotiations must be handled according to certain procedures, which the President has utterly neglected.

It's also notable that President Trump has already registered as a candidate for the 2020 election. That means he not only gets to do campaign fundraising, but also falls under campaign laws that also limit his dealings with foreign entities.

The far-left whackos who insist there was some conspiracy are just that: far-left whackos.

I agree with you here. It's unreasonable to insist there was a conspiracy involving Trump, just like it's unreasonable to insist that Hillary Clinton should be in jail. There is evidence of some abnormalities in Trump's campaign, and there have been several indictments and guilty pleas already. What is not proven (though it certainly seems likely) is that Trump himself was involved to the extent the law forbids.

However, that's not the extent of the alleged offenses. He's also pushed on several occasions to have the investigation terminated prematurely, which is itself an obstruction of justice. Trump could have been completely innocent of the original conspiracies with Russia (which could possibly, if unlikely, have been the efforts of overzealous campaign managers), but the use of his official capacity (including his official Twitter account) to disparage and direct the FBI away from performing an exhaustive investigation would itself likely be a crime.

Even if Trump did blatantly violate the law, it's nearly (though not completely) impossible to indict a sitting President. Instead, Mueller's report will go to Congress, who could determine that Trump should be impeached. If Congress removes Trump from office, then he could be indicted. Then he could be convicted, and then we could say factually that he committed a crime.

Until then, he enjoys the same innocent-until-proven-guilty status that Hillary Clinton does, as he continues to be the subject of a duly-commissioned investigation.