WASHINGTON – A former US soldier charged with trying to share classified information with Beijing may have worked in Intelligence – but you wouldn’t have known it from his foiled plan.

Ex-Army Sgt. Joseph Schmidt, 29, was arrested Friday at San Francisco International Airport after deplaning a flight from Hong Kong.

A grand jury indicted Schmidt Wednesday on charges of retention of and attempt to deliver national defense information, according to the Justice Department.

Schmidt, who served as a team leader of an Army human intelligence squad supporting US espionage in the Indo-Pacific, is accused of attempting to become a spy for China in a plot that began just days after he left the service in February 2020.

Schmidt’s failed plot – which prosecutors called “shocking” –was uncovered after he allegedly made a series of highly suspicious internet searches, including “can you be extradited for treason?”

Google giveaway

During a trip to Istanbul the same month he left the military, Schmidt made nearly 30 Google searches related to defection and spilling military secrets, ranging from “countries with most negative relations with US” to “what is China’s intelligence agency?” and “soldier defect,” according to an FBI investigative report.

Other search terms included “subreddit spying” and “looking for a subreddit about spy stuff.”

Schmidt also queried Google Maps for driving directions from Beijing’s airport to the headquarters of China’s Ministry of State Security, which has a similar role to the CIA.

On Feb. 24, 2020, Schmidt sent a message to the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul requesting a meeting, calling himself a United States citizen looking to move to China.”

“I also am trying to share information I learned during my career as an interrogator with the Chinese government,” he wrote.

“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.”

“My experience includes training in interrogation, running sources as a spy handler, surveillance detection, and other advanced psychological operation strategies,” he continued.

“I would like to go over the details with you in person if possible, as I am concerned with discussing this over email.”

Two days later, Schmidt allegedly typed up a Microsoft Word document entitled, “Important Information to Share with Chinese Government,” which contained a “variety of classified information that relates to the national defense,” according to the FBI report.

He also reached out to three state-owned Chinese propaganda outlets — People’s Daily, China Daily, and Phoenix Television — asking whether they “would be interested in using any of my military stories in your paper.”

“I think your audience would be very interested in reading some of these,” he wrote.

On March 9, 2020, Schmidt traveled to Beijing from Hong Kong, where he had gone three days earlier, and he made another series of telling internet searches, including “What Do Real Spies Do and How are they Recruited,” “Espionage” and “If it’s Spy, it’s here” in apparent attempts to learn how to break into the Chinese intelligence community.

The following day, investigators say, cell phone data indicated that Schmidt had scoped out the Ministry of State Security.

Job search

In Hong Kong without a work visa, Schmidt spent much of 2020 on the job hunt “so he could permanently relocate to China,” an agent wrote in the FBI report.

But as the coronavirus pandemic surged, his career prospects were limited in the country.

On March 16, Schmidt created another document with a less than covert title: “High Level Secrets.”

In it, he described its contents as “a high-level secret of US intelligence [that] can help the Chinese people.”

“My last year in the military left me with experience working with an advanced intelligence team on a project with technology that is very compartmentalized, to the extent that the majority of people in the
intelligence field are unaware of its existence,” he wrote, according to the report.

“I will only discuss this technology in person if I can meet with a qualified member of the Chinese Security Bureau.”

He also offered to create programs that “either mimic American Intelligence Source Handling courses” or conduct “training for surveillance teams to more effectively identify American Spy Handlers by training your intelligence teams in the highest techniques that American Intelligence forces use.”

The document also included US intelligence tradecraft secrets and identified the locations of “numerous” US military bases.

With few options remaining, Schmidt allegedly reached out to a Chinese ID card firm to see if they could “reverse engineer” a smart card used to access the US military’s internal intelligence network “where top secret documents and information are kept.”

“it is a very rare card to find outside of the intelligence community, and if used properly, it can improve China’s ability to access the SIPR network,” Schmidt wrote in an email to the firm.

On May 12, Schmidt allegedly created a 28-slide PowerPoint presentation on “use of technology in military source operation and interrogations,” which included classified information, according to the report.

Schmidt ultimately received a work permit allowing him to stay in Hong Kong, where he remained until his arrest, according to the report. In an email, he told his sister he had no intention of returning to the US, citing “a disagreement with American policy,” explaining he would be “limiting my contact with people who live in America.”

“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,” he wrote, according to the report.

It was unclear what kind of employment – if any – Schmidt eventually found in China.

The former soldier will now stand trial in Washington state, where he was based when he allegedly stole the sensitive information.

He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each charge, according to DOJ.

“Members of our military take a sworn oath to defend our country and the Constitution,” Acting Western District of Washington US Attorney Tessa Gorman said in a statement.

“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 to gain access to Department of Defense secure computer networks.”

“I commend the FBI for their diligent work to end his alleged efforts to betray our country.”