Ex-Army sergeant charged with trying to pass US secrets to China

A former US Army sergeant who allegedly lived in China for several years was arrested Friday on charges of keeping national defense information and attempting to share it with the Chinese government.

According to court filings, Joseph Daniel Schmidt was an active-duty soldier in the US Army from 2015 to 2020, where he served as a team leader on a Human Intelligence squad – eventually supervising the “collection operations and the production of intelligence reporting, analysis, and the dissemination of intelligence products.” In his role, Schmidt had access to classified intelligence, as well as a top-secret security clearance, prosecutors say.