In a court move that reverberated like a novel’s suspenseful climax, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman passed his verdict on Tuesday.
With the same firmness that one might use to seal a historical artifact, he declared that the evidence was “more than sufficient” to convince a jury of Joshua Schulte’s espionage and computer hacking actions.
Furman’s gavel silenced arguments contending lack of evidence or an unjust trial, leaving Schulte, a former CIA programmer, to face his July 2022 conviction.
However, much like the intricate coding systems Schulte once grappled with, the plot thickened as Judge Furman delved deeper.
CIA WikiLeaks Coder : The Thorny Issue of Obstruction
The obstruction charge against Schulte became the courtroom’s riddle wrapped in an enigma. Schulte’s contention, based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1995 decision in United States v. Aguilar, posited that mere false statements to officials who may later address a grand jury didn’t equate to breaking the law.
Drawing parallels to the Aguilar case, where a federal district court judge’s deceptive statements held stronger ties to a grand jury, Judge Furman was left puzzled.
