U.S. soldier pleads guilty to selling military secrets and documents to China

A U.S. Army soldier and intelligence analyst with top secret security clearance pleaded guilty Tuesday to selling American military secrets to China, including fighter jet manuals, documents on missiles and lessons learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in connection to Beijing’s threat to take Taiwan.

Korbein Schultz of Fort Campbell, Tenn., faces decades in federal jail after pleading guilty Tuesday to a six-count indictment for being involved in a conspiracy to use his position to gain access to U.S. national defense information that he sold to a co-conspirator whom he suspected to be linked to the Chinese government. He was also accused of trying to recruit other members of the U.S. military to join the conspiracy.

Brig. Gen. Rhett Cox, commanding general of the Army Counterintelligence Command, said that among Schultz’ crimes was his failure to fulfill the oath he swore to protect national security as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces.

“Not only did he fail in his sworn duty, but placed personal gain above his duty to our country and disclosed information that could give advantage to a foreign nation, putting his fellow Soldiers in jeopardy,” Cox said in a statement Tuesday.

Schultz was arrested and charged in March, ending the conspiracy that the indictment shows began in June 2022 when he was contacted by his co-conspirator, known in court documents as Conspirator A, who claimed to be based in Hong Kong and worked for a geopolitical consulting firm.

Prosecutors said the first information Schultz provided to his co-conspirator in exchange for $200 was documents on what the U.S. military had learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine concerning a potential invasion of Taiwan by China.

After this deal, Schultz told his contact he wanted to forge a long-term relationship. And as their partnership advanced, Conspirator A asked for increasingly sensitive military information.

Copies of encrypted online communication between the pair shows that Schultz was motivated by money, and that he responded enthusiastically to the prospect of making more of it.

“I hope so!” he is quoted in the complaint while responding online to his co-conspirator who said he could earn more money. “I need to get my other BMW back.”

Information Schultz transmitted to Conspirator A included deployment information in support of NATO in Eastern Europe, manuals for the HH-60 helicopter, the F-22A fighter jet and operation of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile systems as well as documents concerning Chinese military tactics and the Asian nation’s military preparedness.

Documents on U.S. military exercises with allies South Korea and the Philippines were also involved as was information on U.S. military satellites, the Justice Department said.

In total, Schultz was paid $42,000.

“By conspiring to transmit national defense information to a person living outside the United States, this defendant callously put our national security at risk to cash in on the trust our military placed in him,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement.

“Today’s guilty plea is a stark reminder that those who would betray their sworn oath for personal gain will be identified and brought to justice.”