Former U.S. Army Sgt. Daniel Schmidt's recent ordeal shows how his attempts to share classified info went all wrong. Prosecutors in Seattle took him into custody this week, charging him with trying to spill American secrets to China.
Schmidt, a 29-year-old who served from 2015 to 2020, faced indictment on October 4. He got arrested at San Francisco airport and now faces one charge of retaining national defense information and another of trying to deliver it. U.S. attorneys Tessa Gorman and Todd Greenberg are handling the case.
According to FBI special agent Brandon Tower's affidavit, Schmidt Googled phrases like 'soldier defect,' 'Chinese embassy,' 'Iranian consulate,' and even 'countries that don't extradite' and 'can you be extradited for treason?'
Prosecutors found this quite telling.
During his military stint, Schmidt led a Human Intelligence team, which meant he had top-secret clearance and handled intelligence data.
But here's the twist: Schmidt's alleged secret-sharing scheme involved some pretty basic methods. He traveled to Turkey and China, using insecure networks to share fabricated documents, including info on U.S. intelligence training methods and even the Army's computer network diagram.
On February 24, 2020, he sent an email to the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, using the alias 'Joe Schmidt,' claiming to be a U.S. citizen with top-secret clearance and offering to share information from his interrogator career.
Schmidt sent more emails to Chinese news outlets, consulates, and others.
Prosecutors even retrieved records from Schmidt's iCloud account, showing him researching driving directions from Beijing airport to China's Ministry of State Security, a bureau handling sensitive info.
These trips happened after he left active duty in January 2020, as per agent Tower's affidavit. In March 2020, Schmidt created a Word document titled 'Important Information to Share with Chinese Government,' which the FBI says contained classified information related to national defense.
Schmidt served in the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Acting U.S. attorney Tessa Gorman called the allegations 'shocking' and said, 'Members of our military take a sworn oath to defend our country and the Constitution. In that context, the alleged actions of this former military member are shocking—not only attempting to provide national defense information, but also information that would assist a foreign adversary in gaining access to Department of Defense secure computer networks.'"
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