Prosecutors unable to bring charges against suspect in leak of CIA hacking tools: report

Prosecutors have identified a suspect in the leak of CIA hacking tools last year but have insufficient evidence to bring charges against him, The Washington Post reports.

Federal authorities believe Joshua Adam Schulte, who worked in the CIA’s Engineering Development Group and is currently in custody in New York awaiting trial for unrelated child pornography charges, was behind the “Vault 7” leaks of top-secret CIA information to WikiLeaks.

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But despite months of investigation, Schulte has not been indicted for any charge related to the leaks, which represented one of the largest unauthorized releases of CIA information in history.

The Post reports that federal prosecutors obtained a search warrant last year for personal computers and hand-written notes from Schulte’s apartment, but that investigators didn’t find any evidence linking Schulte to the disclosure.

“Those search warrants haven’t yielded anything that is consistent with [Schulte’s] involvement in that disclosure,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Laroche reportedly told a court in January.

In a statement to the Post, Schulte proclaimed his innocence. He maintained the agency targeted him because he was the only member of his team to leave the agency after reporting “incompetent management” to the CIA’s inspector general.

“Due to these unfortunate coincidences the FBI ultimately made the snap judgment that I was guilty of the leaks and targeted me,” Schulte said.