By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag
LITERARY SDNY, June 20 – In the retrial of Joshua Schulte for exfiltrating Vault 7 from the CIA to Wikileaks, the courtroom was sealed for the CIA witnesses so that no one could see or report what they looked like.
The exception was for two pool reporters. Kurt Wheelock was one of them - the only one, in fact. No one else, it seemed, cared.
Beyond the sealing of the courtroom, the names of the CIA witnesses and even those cited in testimony or exhibits were shortened or outright changed. One exception was the first CIA witness, Anthony Leonis.
Kurt was in the gallery of Courtroom 15A, right behind Schulte's parents, while Leonis was on the witness stand. He won't be physically described here but his manner was bureaucratic.
He repeatedly said, This wasn't the type of human resources problem you wanted in your third week on the job.
Leonis seemed to mean, his third week as a supervisor of a branch in the CIA's CCI. But when Schulte, representing himself though with a slew of Post-in(TM) notes and whispered instructions from his stand-by counsel, asked Leonis where he worked before being at the CIA, Assistant US Attorney Michael Lockard shouted, "Objection!"
Judge Jesse M. Furman quickly said, "Sustained. Mr. Schulte, remember what we said at sidebar."
The sidebar had taken place with white noise, even in the sealed courtroom. And that was it. Schulte moved on.
But Kurt Wheelock didn't.
As soon as he got back in the Press Room, Kurt in Incognito Mode whatever its utility Googled Anthony Leonis, since they'd said that was his real name.
There was one who'd graduated from high school in California and played baseball there. An older man, with the same name, had died there at 80 years old. Father of the CIA agent?
There was an Anthony Leonis who had been a Human Resources specialist for 35 years. Too old, despite the H.R. irony.
Then Kurt remembered where he'd heard the name. It was on his last job, or beat. At the United Nations, from which he was now banned from even entering as a tourist. One of the cronies of Secretary General Antonio Guterres had mentioned, during one of Guterres' many vacuous photo ops, a project they were working on with: Anthony Leonis.
Kurt had written the name down on the back of a Metro North Railroad ticket stub in his back pocket as soon as he came downstairs from the 38th floor, sitting in the glassed-in focus booth he'd taken to working in after they evicted him from his UN office. He'd transferred the name to the reporter's notebook he kept, same as he did now.
But why would the United Nations, or at least its boss Tony Guterres, be working with a US CIA officer? A spook, a spy, a hacker? Was this Tony helper the same Tony Leonis as in the sealed courtroom, with its heavy drapes held closed with the big black clips Kurt's friend Michael Randall Long still used on legal pleading when they got too long?
Even as the re-trial of Josh Schulte rumbled on, or even if it progress into a third trial on the nasty images charges, Kurt would follow it up. But he would need help from Michael Randall Long. They would be at it again.
To be continues - and see Patreon here.
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