By Jasper Ward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Army intelligence analyst on Tuesday pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to sell military secrets to China, the Department of Justice said.
Korbein Schultz was charged in March with conspiracy to disclose national defense information, exporting defense articles and technical data without a license, and bribery of a public official.
Schultz, who held top secret clearance, conspired with an individual who lived in Hong Kong, whom he suspected of being associated with the Chinese government, to collect national defense information, including classified information and export-controlled technical data related to U.S. military weapons systems, in exchange for money, according to charging and plea documents.
“Governments like China are aggressively targeting our military personnel and national security information and we will do everything in our power to ensure that information is safeguarded from hostile foreign governments,” FBI Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells said in a statement.
Before he was arrested, he sent dozens of sensitive and restricted – but unclassified – military documents, the Department of Justice said.
A document discussing the lessons learned by the Army from the Russia-Ukraine war that it would apply in a defense of Taiwan, documents relating to Chinese military tactics, and a document relating to U.S. military satellites were among the items collected and sent by Schultz.
Schultz was paid approximately $42,000 for the information, according to the department.
“By conspiring to transmit national defense information to a person living outside the United States, this defendant callously put our national security at risk to cash in on the trust our military placed in him,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said.
Schultz is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 23, 2025.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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