Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

But it also sharply contradicts his core argument that the Secret Service ordered him to attack TJX and the other retailers. How could they have authorized it and simultaneously be unaware of it?

Gonzalez’s argument seems to be that even though government agents had no specific knowledge about TJX and others, they knew that he was still breaking into systems to raise money.

Mark Rasch, the former head of the U.S. Justice Department’s computer crimes division and the current Legal Columnist for StorefrontBacktalk, reviewed Gonzalez’s filing and doesn’t see it getting close to supporting a Public Authority defense.

“Essentially, Gonzalez is arguing that, because the Secret Service told him he could commit some crimes, he was authorized to commit the crimes of hacking into TJX and other companies and that his lawyers unreasonably failed to tell him [Public Authority] was a possible defense,” Rasch said. “Therefore, he argues he should be permitted to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial. His motion hints at, but never actually says, that he was specifically authorized to commit the crimes to which he pled. Rather, he argues that when he told the Secret Service he needed money, they essentially told him to ‘do his thing,’ because the U.S. government wasn’t going to pay his debts.”

Even if that actually happened, Rasch said, it wouldn’t support a Public Authority defense. “That defense is when some government agent tells someone that what they are doing is perfectly legal and the defendant believes it. Gonzalez never says that the Secret Service told him it was legal to hack into TJX. The most they said was, in authorizing other activity, ‘we have your back.'”

Rasch offers an example from his federal prosecutor days, when he authorized a confidential informant to rent a car so he could appear at a Miami trial. The informant did rent a car, and then he stole that car and sold it. That informant could not have used Rasch’s rental car authorization as federal permission for the theft.

“While there is evidence supporting Gonzalez’s claim that he was a paid informant and that he was authorized to do some things, there is no factual support for the claim that he was authorized by the government to break into these retail outlets or that he was told this activity was legal,” Rasch said.

There is another possible explanation for these legal maneuvers. Gonzalez has plenty of time on his hands, and being transported to various courtrooms to make arguments is a lot more interesting than sitting in prison waiting for the years to pass.