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By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
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SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 23 – For the upcoming trial of accused CIA leaker Joshua Schulte, US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman is asking to have the public excluded from the courtroom during the testimony of several CIA witnesses. Now even coverage of the January 24 pre-trial conference is being hindered, see below.

On January 21, District Judge Paul A. Crotty scheduled a public hearing on Berman's request, to be held on January 27 in the run-up to the trial scheduled to begin February 3. Inner City Press will be there for both.

  Unless the trial is postponed. On January 23, Federal Defenders wrote to Judge Crotty about how the US Attorney's Office's secrecy is hindering their work: "We write to advise the Court, in advance of the final pretrial conference tomorrow, of continuing problems which had prompted us to seek a status conference before the one scheduled tomorrow. On January 13, 2020, the government produced to the defense 1,801pages of classified "3500" material (not including 8 Excel spreadsheets, 3 video files, and 3 audio files) and 5,618 pages of unclassified "3500" material. While some of this has been produced to us before, it is still a very large amount of new information for the client and his counsel to process. Concerned, on January 17, 2020, we told the CISO, the government, and eventually the Court that the defense has neither the equipment nor the personnel to copy and process this amount of 3500 material. The volume was overwhelming. On Sunday, January 19, 2020, the government produced 5,313 additional pages of classified discovery. The defense was unable even to begin looking at that material until yesterday, January 23, 2020. The volume of these productions is interfering with our trial preparation. Defense counsel, Mr. Schulte, and our experts are having difficulty reviewing and processing the 3500 production (and we refer here only to the most recently produced documents). By February 3, 2020, only one trial lawyer—Ms. Shroff—will have read all the classified discovery and 3500 material in this case. This does not even begin to address the trial exhibits (CIPA 6, CIPA 10 and CIPA 5 exhibits) —which we still do not have and which, again, only one trial lawyer has ever reviewed.

Further, we still have not been authorized by the CISO or the CIA to conduct even the most rudimentary investigation into any of the many CIA witnesses expected to testify at this trial."

  On the morning January 22, Inner City Press has submitted a preliminary opposition to sealing to Judge Crotty and his Courtroom Deputy, copies to the US Attorney and Federal Defender. By the afternoon, it was filed in the docket:

"The following transaction was entered on 1/22/2020 at 2:59 PM EST and filed on 1/22/2020 Case Name:    USA v. Schulte Case Number:    1:17-cr-00548-PAC Filer:     Document Number:    261 Docket Text: Docket Annotation as to Joshua Adam Schulte from the media: Objection to courtroom closure measures by Inner City Press."

   Judge Crotty's order had alluded to a limited but live feed - but now despite request it appears that will not be available for the January 24 final pre-trial conference (a type of proceeding Inner City Press live tweeted in US v. Avenatti on January 22, here) and, it seems, even of the purported public hearing. Inner City Press has asked - we'll have more on this.

Schulte has been charged to providing WikiLeaks with information about the CIA's hacking activities, which WikiLeaks subsequently published in its "Vault7" trove.

Since then Schulte has been accused of further dissemination of information from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and put into solitary confinement there.   

For months Inner City Press, even as it has complained about being unceremoniously ordered to leave certain courtrooms including that of Judge Crotty, has observed lawyers headed to the "SCIF" on the ninth floor of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York at 500 Pearl Street.  

 One of Schulte's lawyers, Sabrina Shroff who also represented former Senegal foreign minister Cheikh Gadio in a UN bribery trial Inner City Press covered, has indicted she was constrained in what she could say. She has complied with all rules, however restrictive. But information wants to be free.    

  As noted in its January 22 letter, on July 22, 2019 Inner City Press went to Judge Crotty's courtroom for the case US v. Perlson but was told by Judge Crotty to leave. Inner City Press said, "I am a reporter. If you are going to try to close a public courtroom there must be specific findings, for specific portions. There is case law."  Inner City Press pointed out US v. Haller, 837 F.2d 84, 87 (before closing a proceeding to which the First Amendment right of access attaches, the judge should make specific, on the record findings demonstrate that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest). 

 There followed a sidebar, apparently transcribed, from which Inner City Press was excluded. At the end Judge Crotty while ordering Inner City Press to leave said that the government's case was moving along well and that he hoped to unseal the transcript in a month. 

 Six months later, the case still shows up as "cannot find case" in PACER.

Often when the Schulte case has appeared in the day's Events Calendar in PACER, with proceeding scheduled for Judge Crotty's Courtroom 14C, Inner City Press has gone, only to find the courtroom door locked.  

Now, at least on January 27, the door will be open. Inner City Press will be there, and while hoping to live tweet from right there, will publish a full article immediately after. Watch this site. 

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