US Army Analyst Pleads Guilty to Selling Military Secrets to China

The Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington on July 29, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

A U.S. Army intelligence analyst has pleaded guilty to charges that accuse him of selling military secrets to China for a total of $42,000, according to the Department of Justice.

Sgt. Korbein Schultz was an army intelligence analyst with the First Battalion of the 506th Infantry Regiment at Fort Campbell, an army installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. He was arrested at the military base in March after being indicted by a federal grand jury.

On Aug. 13, Schultz pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, exporting technical data related to defense articles without a license, conspiracy to export defense articles without a license, and bribery of a public official, the Justice Department (DOJ) said in a statement.

“The defendant abused his access to restricted government systems to sell sensitive military information to a person he knew to be a foreign national,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the DOJ’s National Security Division said in a statement.

“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.”

Schultz had held top secret/sensitive compartmented information security clearance in the Army.

He was recruited by an individual who lived in Hong Kong and was identified only as “Conspirator A,” whom he suspected of being “associated with the Chinese government,” according to the DOJ.

The conspiracy started in 2022 until the time of his arrest, the indictment said, and the two used “multiple-based encrypted methods” to communicate.

Schultz handed over dozens of sensitive and restricted, but unclassified, military documents, including information on the HH-60 helicopter, F-22A fighter aircraft, the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, intercontinental ballistic missiles, the B-52 aircraft, the high mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS), and the terminal high altitude area defense system, according to the indictment.

Conspirator A also asked Schultz to provide information on hypersonic equipment, the indictment said, but it’s unclear if Schultz had successfully complied with the request.

HIMARS, a long-range precision strike system, made headlines after Ukraine used the U.S.-supplied rocket systems to destroy Russian ammunition depots.

Other documents supplied by Schultz included one discussing lessons learned by the U.S. Army from the Ukraine war that it would apply in a defense of Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China seeks to control.

Schultz also passed on several documents relating to military exercises and the U.S. military forces in South Korea and the Philippines, as well as a document related to U.S. military satellites.

Conspirator A also obtained from Schultz a document about China’s military tactics and another about China’s Liberation Army Rocket Force.

‘Corrupt Other Members’

The indictment also mentioned another individual identified as “U.S. Person 1,” a fellow U.S. Army soldier, whom Schultz had recruited to provide information. Conspirator A asked that U.S. Person 1 provide information related to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), such as documents on the command’s studies of the Ukraine war and Taiwan.

In November 2022, Conspirator A determined that a document titled “INDOPACOM Lessons Learned” provided by U.S. Person 1 was “too simple,” according to the indictment.

On Aug. 10, 2023, Schultz and Conspirator A discussed a case involving two U.S. Navy sailors, who were arrested two days prior for allegedly passing sensitive military information to China. Following their discussion, Conspirator A told Schultz that “they must be more careful with security,” according to the indictment.

One of the two Navy sailors, Wenheng Zhao of Monterey Park, was sentenced to 27 months in prison in Los Angeles in January.

“This defendant sold national defense information to a foreign actor and conspired to corrupt other members of our military,” U.S. Attorney Henry Leventis for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a statement.

“In doing so, he violated his training and his oath as a member of the armed services and he compromised our national security. Today’s guilty plea to all of the charges in the indictment ensures that he will be held fully accountable for his crimes.”

Schultz is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 23 next year.

Schultz’s attorney Mary Kathryn Harcombe declined to comment when contacted by The Epoch Times.