Highly Decorated Ex-Army Sergeant Arrested for Plotting to Leak US Secrets to China

Joseph Daniel Schmidt, a former US Army sergeant, was arrested on Friday for allegedly residing in China for multiple years and being in possession of national defense information, with the intention of sharing it with the Chinese government. Court documents reveal that Schmidt served as an active-duty soldier from 2015 to 2020, acting as a team leader in a Human Intelligence squad. Over time, he progressed to the role of supervising collection operations, intelligence reporting and analysis, and the dissemination of intelligence products. As a result, Schmidt had access to classified intelligence and held a top-secret security clearance, according to prosecutors.

Schmidt is set to appear in a California federal court on Friday as stated in a news release by the Justice Department.

If found guilty, Schmidt could face a maximum of 10 years in prison for each of the two charges he is facing - attempting to deliver national defense information and retention of national defense information. There is no attorney mentioned for Schmidt in the public docket.

After transitioning to inactive duty in January 2020, Schmidt reportedly traveled to Beijing and Turkey and conducted online searches using phrases such as "turkey extradition military defection," "soldier defect," "chinese embassy," "iranian embassy," and "can you be extradited for treason."

According to court documents, in February 2020, Schmidt emailed the public email address of the Chinese Consulates in Turkey, expressing his intention to relocate to China and "share information I acquired during my career as an interrogator with the Chinese government."

"I currently possess a top-secret clearance and am interested in engaging with a government representative to disclose this information, if feasible. My expertise encompasses interrogation techniques, managing individuals as a handler in espionage operations, surveillance detection, and various advanced strategies for psychological operations," he purportedly expressed.

According to federal investigators, Schmidt proceeded to generate a document titled "Essential Information for Sharing with the Chinese Government," which the US Army subsequently ascertained to encompass classified information regarding national defense.

In March 2020, Schmidt traveled back to China after a brief stay in the US following his trip to Turkey, according to court documents. The Justice Department reports that he did not return to the US until Friday, and he was apprehended at an airport in San Francisco.

During his time in China, Schmidt purportedly generated additional documents that outlined US Army intelligence procedures regarding training, intelligence gathering, and interrogation techniques. Additionally, he produced a hand-drawn diagram depicting an Army computer network.

The ex-Army sergeant purportedly reached out to Chinese government-run companies to promote his services and offer access to sensitive information. In an email, Schmidt allegedly expressed his intention to "reverse engineer" an encryption key employed for accessing a classified Army network, with the purpose of sharing it with the Chinese government. He allegedly stated in an email to a colleague that his decision to depart from the United States was driven by revelations about the American government that he had discovered while serving in the Army.

Several members of the US armed forces have faced charges this year for the retention or dissemination of military information with other nations, including China. Earlier in August, two US Navy sailors were accused of sharing sensitive military information with a foreign country. Among them, one individual reportedly sent blueprints of a US radar system in Japan. Additionally, a National Guardsman was arrested in April for allegedly posting a substantial number of classified documents on social media.