Overview
- U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour imposed four years in prison plus three years of supervised release in Seattle on Oct. 28.
- Joseph Daniel Schmidt, 31, pleaded guilty in June 2025 to attempting to deliver national defense information and to retaining national defense information.
- After leaving the Army in early 2020, he contacted Chinese officials, traveled to Hong Kong and Beijing, and offered documents along with a device capable of accessing secure U.S. military networks.
- He remained in Hong Kong for more than three years before flying to San Francisco, where he was arrested on Oct. 6, 2023, after his China visa was not renewed.
- The FBI and U.S. Army Counterintelligence investigated and say they do not know whether Chinese officials ever received classified material, despite intercepted outreach and online searches.