Leaker: I’m patriot
Ex-CIA worker hit with kid porn says he’s not a pervert
The former CIA employee charged with one of the most damaging leaks in the agency’s history — and possession of child pornography — submitted a 137-page handwritten manifesto seeking bail Thursday, arguing he is not a pervert but a patriot.
Joshua Schulte said the document handed to Judge Paul Crotty during a hearing in Manhattan Federal Court was an application for bail in light of “new information discovered in the case.”
Schulte was arrested on child porn charges last August after a raid on his New York apartment. It wasn’t until this month that prosecutors charged him with leaking an arsenal of CIA hacking tools through WikiLeaks.
The government “wrongfully attacked an American patriot who served his country for years and even prevented terrorists from this great city,” Schulte, 29, wrote.
“I see that the freedom and democracy I thought I was defending never actually existed – the Great American Façade.”
Schulte submitted his bail application along with a 100page “appendix” appearing to include excerpts of his chat logs dating back to 2006. He wrote that he’d lost 35 lbs in custody and still hadn’t had a chance to see much of the evidence against him.
“The desktop with the alleged child pornography … is entirely classified. That’s right, classified child pornography that I can’t analyze,” he wrote.
“How long must I endure this tortuous hell in federal prison before I even get my trial?”
Schulte described himself as a computer nerd being held responsible for child porn stored on an online community he’d created.
The judge did not seem impressed with Schulte’s bail application, which he filed without the assistance of his court-appointed attorney.
“This is 137 pages, not including the appendix?” Crotty grumbled.
“Unfortunately our typewriter is broken so it had to be handwritten,” replied Schulte, who is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
“I’m not sure when I’ll get finished,” Crotty said. “But I’ll start reading.”