Petraeus Takes The Easy Way Out, Pleads Guilty

[Suzanimal]

Two years probation. Think they'll offer Snowden a sweet deal like that? Me neither.

March 3, 2015—General David Petraeus has taken a plea deal. The former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency pleaded guilty to charges associated with the way he handled classified material. That also means the former American military officer will not go to jail.

Petraeus may have been persuaded to take the plea deal once he learned it would spare him from the embarrassment of the trial procedure.

Federal prosecutors claim the retired four-star general gave Paula Broadwell, the former Army Reserve officer he had an affair with, binders of classified material. Notes concerning his private discussions with President Obama were reportedly among some of the documents he handed to Broadwell. At the time of the affair, the former officer was writing a biography on Petraeus titled All In.

According to Fox News, Petraeus may get two years of probation.

While the big news may be that the former CIA Director decided to take the easy way out, his involvement in the drafting of the Benghazi attack talking points remains cloaked in a thick fog of misleading official information.

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http://www.voicesofliberty.com/artic...m_medium=email

[Suzanimal]

NSA Whistleblower: Petraeus Plea Deal Is ‘Slap On the Wrist’

March 4, 2015—National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake has claimed the plea deal offered to former CIA Director David Petraeus is nothing but a “slap on the wrist.”

His actions, Drake said, were illegal and did not serve any public good. And yet, the federal government is going easy on him.

To many, this is a great example of a double standard. While the criminal law is often not applied to whistleblowers equally, the federal government appears to have let Petraeus out too easy. The fear of backlash is not there, therefore nothing seems to keep Petraeus from slipping through the cracks.

After allegedly revealing information on the NSA’s Trailblazer monitoring project to a journalist, Drake was indicted under the Espionage Act. He was also charged for allegedly making false statements and obstructing justice. In spite of the years put into fighting the federal government’s allegations against him, the charges were eventually dropped. He was later urged to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge to avoid jail time.

The former CIA director was let off the hook with a fine, but Chelsea Manning is still in jail. Edward Snowden hopes to return to America but only if he’s given a fair trial. Some believe that the latest developments indicate Snowden should stay away from the United States if he ever hopes to live freely.

To writer Michael Bradley, the Petraeus case is an indication that whistleblowers who act for selfless reasons get to pay a much greater price than those who act for selfish reasons.

“Petraeus’s record and reputation should, if anything, have aggravated his punishment. What deterrent effect is this plea deal going to have on others with the same kind of privileged access to state secrets? Apparently, if you give it to your girlfriend, that’s a misdemeanour. But hand it to WikiLeaks and you’re a traitor. There’s a perverted morality at play here.”

Ron Paul once said he found it interesting that the federal government sees the public as the enemy when it insists to indict whistleblowers like Manning and Snowden under the Espionage Act. But charging whistleblowers for “aiding the enemy” continues to be the default, unless you leak information meant to make you look good on paper.

http://www.voicesofliberty.com/artic...-on-the-wrist/

[Todd]

Every person of privilege always has one of these.

[Carlybee]

Gets slap on wrist while Snowden gets branded a traitor.

[donnay]

Two years probation? SMDH.

[paleocon1]

"To writer Michael Bradley, the Petraeus case is an indication that whistleblowers who act for selfless reasons get to pay a much greater price than those who act for selfish reasons."

Naturally, its the selfless ones who are dangerous to the Regime. Petraeus just wanted to keep his wiki wet. I am sure he was very diligent obeying orders to protect the Afgan opium trade and other vital missions from the Regime.

[AuH20]

I guess that book he was writing went kaput?

[pcosmar]

So when will we see him on Faux Snooze as a featured expert?

[Ronin Truth]

He probably figures that they'll go easy on a certified HERO.

He probably figures right.

[Suzanimal]

Just-Us

PETRAEUS PLEA DEAL REVEALS TWO-TIER JUSTICE SYSTEM FOR LEAKS

David Petraeus, the former Army general and CIA director, admitted today that he gave highly-classified journals to his onetime lover and that he lied to the FBI about it. But he only has to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor that will not involve a jail sentence thanks to a deal with federal prosecutors. The deal is yet another example of a senior official treated leniently for the sorts of violations that lower-level officials are punished severely for.

According to the plea deal, Petraeus, while leading American forces in Afghanistan, maintained eight notebooks that he filled with highly-sensitive information about the identities of covert officers, military strategy, intelligence capabilities and his discussions with senior government officials, including President Obama. Rather than handing over these “Black Books,” as the plea agreement calls them, to the Department of Defense when he retired from the military in 2011 to head the CIA, Petraeus retained them at his home and lent them, for several days, to Paula Broadwell, his authorized biographer and girlfriend.

In October 2012, FBI agents interviewed Petraeus as part of an investigation into his affair with Broadwell — Petraeus would resign from the CIA the next month — and Petraeus told them he had not shared classified material with Broadwell. The plea deal notes that “these statements were false” and that Petraeus “then and there knew that he previously shared the Black Books with his biographer.” Lying to FBI agents is a federal crime for which people have received sentences of months or more than a year in jail.

Under his deal with prosecutors, Petraeus pleaded guilty to just one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information, a misdemeanor that can be punishable by a year in jail, though the deal calls only for probation and a $40,000 fine. As The New York Times noted today, the deal “allows Mr. Petraeus to focus on his lucrative post-government career as a partner in a private equity firm and a worldwide speaker on national security issues.”

The deal has another effect: it all but confirms a two-tier justice system in which senior officials are slapped on the wrist for serious violations while lesser officials are harshly prosecuted for relatively minor infractions.

...

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...-system-leaks/

[TheTexan]

He's clearly loyal to his country so why is this a crime at all?

If someone less loyal did it, say perhaps someone who hates this great country, I would understand pressing charges.

[anaconda]

Two years probation.

And the sheeple sit idly by and allow the law to be enforced selectively.

[anaconda]

He probably figures that they'll go easy on a certified HERO.

General "Betray-us."

[Chester Copperpot]

i didnt know this guy was even in the CIA... Last time I remember him Im pretty sure it was in uniform in iraq or afghanistan

[Suzanimal]

Petraeus Pleads Guilty

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Petraeus commanded troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This means he has blood on his hands and is guilty of crimes far greater than what he was or could have been charged with. This is because these unjust wars were crimes against humanity. Crimes for which Petraeus was once called a hero.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...pleads-guilty/

[specsaregood]

i didnt know this guy was even in the CIA... Last time I remember him Im pretty sure it was in uniform in iraq or afghanistan

I seem to recall when he was appointed that supposedly people in the CIA were not happy with him as the pick because he was an outsider (not CIA). Guess he found out the hard way that the CIA gets what it wants.

[Suzanimal]

Defense lawyer rips Petraeus plea deal for ‘double standard’ in leak cases

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But Lowell wrote the letter, obtained by Yahoo News, to highlight what he described as a “profound double standard” in the government’s prosecution of leak cases — a subject of mounting debate that could weigh on the Justice Department's decision in at least one ongoing high-profile leak probe.

The issue of the differing treatment of leakers — and especially the relatively light plea deal for Petraeus, who will receive no prison time — is also expected to come up in next month’s sentencing of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer convicted of leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen.

Edward MacMahon, one of Sterling’s lawyers, confirmed to Yahoo News that he too will be citing the Petraeus case when his client — who is potentially facing up to 10 years in prison — is sentenced next month. “I’ll be discussing all the sentencing in leak cases,” MacMahon said.

After a five-year legal battle, Kim — one of the State Department’s top experts on North Korea’s nuclear program — pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Espionage Act in April 2014 for leaking classified information to Fox News reporter James Rosen and was sentenced to 13 months in federal prison.

But Lowell argues that Kim’s prison term doesn’t square with the Justice Department’s decision earlier this month to allow Petraeus to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information — and to forgo recommending any jail time, asking for a $40,000 fine instead.

“General Petraeus is admitting to disclosing [national defense information] that was at least as serious and damaging to national security as anything involved in Mr. Kim’s case,” Lowell wrote in his letter to Machen on March 6.

“Specifically, General Petraeus disclosed notebooks, containing ‘classified information’ regarding the identities of covert officers, war strategy … and deliberative discussions from high level National Security Council meetings.”

In court filings on March 3, Petraeus acknowledged turning over so-called black books — binders of notebooks he kept while serving as the top U.S. general in Afghanistan — to Paula Broadwell, his mistress and biographer. There was no evidence, however, that Broadwell used the classified information in her book.

But what irked Lowell, and prompted him to write the letter, was Petraeus’ admission that he lied to two FBI agents, falsely and knowingly denying that he leaked any classified information when he was questioned about the matter in October 2012, while he was CIA director.

Lowell recounted in his letter to Machen that when he sought to secure a misdemeanor plea and no jail time for Kim, “you rejected that out of hand, saying that a large reason for your position was that Mr. Kim lied to FBI agents when he was confronted with the issue of his dealings with the Fox News reporter.”

Lowell argued that this underscores a point he and others have been making about the Justice Department’s handling of leak cases for some time: “lower-level employees like Mr. Kim are prosecuted under the Espionage Act because they are easy targets and lack the resources and political connections to fight back,” while “high level officials” like Petraeus “leak classified information to forward their own agendas (or to impress their mistresses) with virtual impunity.”

The Obama administration has been widely criticized by news organizations and watchdog groups — and praised by some in national security circles — for aggressively pursuing leak investigations, filing more criminal charges for violations of the Espionage Act (seven) than all previous administrations combined.

But the issue of double standards is getting increasing traction and is generating particular scrutiny now as the Justice Department weighs whether to file charges against another former high-level official, Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is suspected of leaking classified information about a joint U.S.-Israeli effort to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, using a computer virus called Stuxnet, to New York Times reporter David Sanger.

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http://news.yahoo.com/defense-lawyer...222156221.html