Ex-Army soldier charged with trying to pass US secrets to China

(CN) — A former U.S. Army sergeant accused of attempting to pass on sensitive American defense information to the Chinese government was arrested this week, according to court documents unsealed Friday.

Federal agents took Joseph D. Schmidt, a 29-year-old former Army sergeant once based in Washington state, into custody this week after Schmidt arrived in San Francisco from Hong Kong, where FBI documents say he has lived since 2020.

Schmidt appeared in federal court in California on Friday, where he was charged with one count of attempting to deliver national defense information and one count of retaining national defense information, each carrying a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. He will be brought to Washington state for further court proceedings, according to a Justice Department release.

During his active duty, Schmidt was assigned to the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion at Washington state’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Schmidt held top secret security clearance, led intelligence operations and studied Mandarin in his work supporting the Indo-Pacific Command, which includes China, court records say.

According to court documents, Schmidt had shown interest in China and had even traveled there once during his tenure with the Army. In the month after he left active duty in 2020, he traveled again to Beijing and later to Turkey, where he Googled terms like “turkey extradition military defection” and “can you be extradited for treason,” and sent an email to the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul offering his expertise in American surveillance and espionage.

“I also am trying to share information I learned during my career as an interrogator with the Chinese government,” he wrote in the email. “I have a current top secret clearance and would like to talk to someone from the Government to share this information with you if that is possible.”

Schmidt was also found to have searched for Chinese cybersecurity companies and to have visited Reddit pages on how to conduct espionage. Screenshots recovered from Schmidt’s Apple iCloud account also showed his phone near China’s security ministry in Beijing, as well photos he took of his military ID and access cards.

A federal investigation also turned up several Word documents created by Schmidt — including one titled “Important Information to Share with Chinese Government” and others detailing military operations and Army intelligence training he had been involved with, that court documents say Schmidt was preparing to be shared with Chinese officials.

Court documents do not indicate whether Schmidt ever succeeded in conferring information on national defense to Chinese officials.

In an email to his sister discovered by federal agents, Schmidt wrote: “I don’t talk about it often, but I learned some really terrible things about the American government while I was working in the Army, and I no longer feel safe living in America or like I want to support the American government.”

Schmidt then attempted to get a job and a work visa for the People’s Republic of China, though he had been stymied in part by China’s Covid-19 pandemic protocols.

Since 2020, court papers say, Schmidt had been living in Hong Kong, until he returned to the U.S. this week and was arrested at the San Francisco airport.