US Army soldier pleads guilty to selling military secrets to China

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An Army intelligence analyst on Tuesday pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to sell military information to China, the Justice Department announced.
Korbein Schultz, 25, who was a sergeant at Fort Campbell, was charged in March with conspiracy to disclose national defense information, exporting defense articles and technical data without a license, and bribery of a public official. He pleaded guilty to all six felonies he was charged with, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Tennessee.
Schultz, who held top secret clearance, conspired with an individual who lived in Hong Kong, whom he suspected of being associated with the Chinese government, to collect national defense information, including classified information and export-controlled technical data related to U.S. military weapons systems, in exchange for money, according to charging and plea documents.
“Governments like China are aggressively targeting our military personnel and national security information and we will do everything in our power to ensure that information is safeguarded from hostile foreign governments,” FBI Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger will sentence Schultz on Jan. 23. The three charges for unlawful export of defense articles to China carry the most severe possible punishment with a maximum 20-year prison sentence and $1 million fine.
Schultz is also required to surrender any property or money “traceable” to his crimes, and he is prohibited from profiting off his crimes in the future.
“You can’t go out and write a book and make a million dollars,” Trauger told him.
An FBI special agent revealed new details of Schultz’s crimes as he read the facts of the case. While his indictment had identified his co-conspirator in China as a purported geopolitical consulting firm employee, the FBI agent said Tuesday the person worked for the Chinese government.
The agent said Schultz realized at some point that the co-conspirator’s pretense of working for a consulting firm was a lie and that the person worked for the Chinese government. Mary-Kathryn Harcombe, Schultz’s appointed attorney, said he thinks while he ought to have known, he never fully realized this.
Some of the information Schultz sold his co-conspirator related to how the U.S. would respond to an invasion of Taiwan and what it learned from Russia’s war with Ukraine. He received $200 for providing the co-conspirator with the document that provided that information. He also provided information about the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea and the Philippines.
The agent also said that Schultz tried to recruit a higher-ranking Army employee into his scheme with the Chinese co-conspirator to get ahold of more sensitive information.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security division said Schultz’s actions “callously put our national security at risk to cash in on the trust our military placed in him.”
In a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee, Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI’s National Security Branch said China’s government is “aggressively targeting our military personnel.”
“This Soldier swore an oath to faithfully discharge his duties, to include protecting national defense information,” Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, commanding general of the Army Counterintelligence Command, said in the news release. “Not only did he fail in his sworn duty, but he placed personal gain above his duty to our country and disclosed information that could give an advantage to a foreign nation, putting his fellow Soldiers in jeopardy.”
In sum, Schultz gave away information about advanced military helicopters, high-mobility artillery rocket systems, defensive missile systems and Chinese military tactics, as well as the tactics, techniques and procedures manuals for the F-22A fighter jet and intercontinental missiles, in exchange for $42,000, prosecutors said.
The co-conspirator baited Schultz with promises of perks and leveraged his apparent love of auto racing and desire for wealth, based on the indictment. Schultz once told the co-conspirator he “wished he could be ‘Jason Bourne,'” according to his indictment.
Schultz appeared in court Tuesday wearing a green jumpsuit and shackled at the ankles. Several onlookers, some of whom were from Fort Campbell, were seated in the gallery.
Contributing: Krystal Nurse, USA TODAY; Reuters
Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @EvanMealins.