For the record, the original allegation [0]:
>investigators discovered a single classified document as well as over 10,000 images and videos depicting child pornography including "sadistic and masochistic images and videos of children as young as a few years old who had been brutally sexually assaulted." The government found that Schulte had "neatly organized" this material "according to his preferences, and stored it for a period of years."
More details here, including IRC chat logs: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.480183...
I'd recommend reading the whole criminal complaint. They'd really have to provide full, unedited chat logs in order to get a more holistic view, but from what they provided, it does seem somewhat ambiguous. Based on the chat logs and Google search results they found, it seems clear he did intentionally seek out and download child pornography. However, from the conversation snippets they posted, I could see the argument that it was a morbid curiosity for him rather than out of pedophilic urges. None of those conversations look anything like conversations between pedophiles or child porn distributors. One would think they would stick the worst stuff in the complaint, and if those are the worst logs they found, then it doesn't seem like a total open-and-shut case. You could definitely interpret those logs as Schulte slyly probing for where to find things, with some plausible deniability, so he could fulfill his sexual desires, but you could also possibly interpret it as young guys (he was around 21 at the time, talking to other young guys) being edgy and stupid.
That interpretation is tough given the fact that he had 54 GB of it, in a folder named "CP Files", across over 10,000 images and videos, in neatly organized sub-folders. They also found a few Google searches up until 2012. [1] Though, if it were perhaps one large archive he had downloaded and extracted one time, rather than meticulously curating individual files over years, I could possibly see the argument that it was from when he was just researching about that horrible fascination. If so, and if it was done around 2009 - 2012, it's possible he could've even forgotten he had it when he got raided in 2017. And the Google searches look pretty bad, but, again, if those are the worst they found, I wouldn't say it's open-and-shut.
Of course, I do think people should face consequences for having 10,000+ items of child pornography, regardless of their motives, but there could be mitigating factors here. Or there might not be. One would have to look at a lot more evidence, and we'll presumably get a look at that once he's separately tried for the child pornography charges.
In an interesting twist, he actually did (briefly?) publicly claim he was framed, and there's an allegation that he planned to use two false identities and a document claiming inside knowledge that the child pornography was planted, written by him under one of these false identities (masquerading as a supposed internal FBI source), to be released by WikiLeaks. Basically, the government is accusing him of trying to frame a framing. This appears to not be denied by him (I think?), but could possibly be thrown out due to potential attorney client-privilege issues with the documents that contained the evidence. (Not sure if it was brought up in this trial.) In my opinion, the evidence is pretty damning that he did plan to spread this disinformation to cast doubt about the leak and the child pornography; though all of this doesn't necessarily lend more support to any of the original allegations. [2][3][4]
I'm not a fan of this trend of HN comments skimming some headline or article snippet and then giving a hot take without actually looking into any of the facts or claims. I feel like it's been happening a lot more in the past few years; even reddit often isn't as bad. It takes about a minute to see the government's case against him and to consider a few possible defenses he may have, rather than knee-jerk pattern matching "alleged CIA leaker accused of CP possession" to "FBI/CIA possibly/likely planted evidence", with nothing to support that. If you were to sow some seeds of doubt in the veracity of the logs or any other government claims, it'd be different. Just because it's a plausible story from a motive perspective doesn't mean the onus still isn't on you to support the suspicion.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte#Sex_crimes_alle...
[1] (Paraphrased slightly) (i) April 9, 2011, Google Search for "child pornography" on at least three occasions; (ii) October 15, 2011, Google Searches for "movie where father videos daughter and friend sex" and "movie where father videos child porn"; and (iii) May 15, 2012, Google Search for "female teenage body by year."
[2] https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/06/19/accused-vault-7-leaker...
[3] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.480183...
[4] Excerpts:
>“So who’s responsible for Vault 7? The CIA’s own version of the FBI’s Peter Strzok and Lisa Page”
>in the Fake FBI Document in the Schulte Cell Documents, a purported FBI “whistleblower” claimed that the FBI had placed child pornography on Schulte’s computer after its initial searches of the device were unsuccessful in recovering evidence.