Intel weenie attempts to spy for China

A former buck sergeant intel guy from Joint Base Lewis McChord (JLBM) name of Joseph Daniel Schmidt has been busted attempting to recruit himself into spying for the Chinese.

Federal agents took 29-year-old Joseph Daniel Schmidt into custody at the San Francisco airport this morning (October 6 – ed.), officials said. He faces one count of trying to deliver national defense information and one count of retention of national defense information.

Court papers say Schmidt served in the U.S. Army from 2015 to 2020, primarily with the 109^th Military Intelligence Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. He held a top secret security clearance, had studied Mandarin and worked as a team leader in spying operations.

Those efforts began, court papers say, just over a month after Schmidt left the military when he traveled to Istanbul, Turkey. Investigators say his internet search history at the time includes searches for how to defect, including searching “countries that dont extradite” and “can you be extradited for treason.”

According to court papers, Schmidt introduces himself, explains that he has a top secret U.S. government security clearance and experience in surveillance detection and running spies. He allegedly offers to share his knowledge with the Chinese government, and asks for a face-to-face meeting.

Court papers say Schmidt has remained in China, primarily in Hong Kong, since 2020, and has continued to try to provide sensitive U.S. government information to Chinese authorities.

This week, officials say, he booked a flight to San Francisco, where he was arrested by federal agents at the airport.  NPR

While in China, Schmidt allegedly created other documents detailing US Army intelligence practices over training, intelligence collection, interrogations methods as well as a hand-drawn diagram of an Army computer network.

The former Army sergeant allegedly contacted Chinese companies run by the government there to advertise his services and access to sensitive material. In one such email, Schmidt allegedly wanted to “reverse engineer” an encryption key used to access a classified network in the Army “to give to the Chinese government.”

He allegedly wrote in an email to an associate that he was motivated to leave the US after learning “some terrible things about the American government” while serving in the Army.  CNN

An E-5 first-termer is probably privy to all sorts of state secrets, huh. And I’m sure he is well trained in all kinds of expert techniques the Chinese have never thought of. I wonder where in covert intel school he was taught to do open Internet searches with incriminating terms, or directly e-mailing a hostile intelligence service.  “Lookee MEEE!!” seems more descriptive.

Usually one of the first questions which should be asked is, if they took him, “what did he have that they wanted”?  In this case they seem to have neither taken him nor thrown him back. Not sure what that says?

Category: China, International Affairs