Former CIA boss sentenced 2 years probation for military leak
Former Central Intelligence Agency, CIA Director, David Petraeus, whose career was
destroyed by an extramarital affair with his biographer, was sentenced Thursday
to two years' probation and fined $100,000 for giving her classified material
while she was working on the book.
The sentencing came two months after he agreed to plead
guilty to a federal misdemeanor count of unauthorized removal and retention of
classified material, reports AP.
The plea agreement carried a possible sentence of up to a
year in prison. In court papers, prosecutors recommended two years' probation
and a $40,000 fine. But Judge David Kessler increased the fine to "reflect
seriousness of the offense." He said Petraeus committed a "grave and
uncharacteristic error in judgment."
Appearing calm and wearing a business suit, Petraeus made a
brief statement before he was sentenced, apologizing "for the pain my
actions have caused."
Petraeus attorney Jake Sussman said this was not a case
about the public dissemination of classified information, but the wrongful
removal of materials.
But prosecutor James Melindres said, "This is a serious
criminal offense. He was entrusted with the nation's most classified secrets.
The defendant betrayed that trust". Melindres says Petraeus compounded
that trust by "lying to the FBI"
The agreement was filed in federal court in Charlotte, the
city where Paula Broadwell, the general's biographer and former lover, lives
with her husband and children.
The prospect of probation for Petraeus had been raised as an
issue in an unrelated case by supporters of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA
officer convicted of giving a New York Times reporter classified details of an
operation to derail Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Federal prosecutors in Virginia have urged a stiff sentence
for Sterling, and probation officers have calculated a sentencing guidelines
range of 20 to 24 years.
Supporters including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop
Desmond Tutu argued that Sterling's expected sentence would be out of line with
the deal that Petraeus secured.
The affair ruined the reputation of the retired four-star
Army general who led U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As part of his deal, Petraeus agreed not to contest the set
of facts laid out by the government.
Prosecutors said that while Broadwell was writing her book
in 2011, Petraeus gave her eight binders of classified material he had
improperly kept from his time as the top military commander in Afghanistan. Days
later, he took the binders back to his house.
Among the secret information contained in the "black
books" were the names of covert operatives, the coalition war strategy and
notes about Petraeus' discussions with President Barack Obama and the National
Security Council, prosecutors said.
Those binders were later seized by the FBI in an April 2013
search of Petraeus' Arlington, Virginia, home, where he had kept them in the
unlocked drawer of a desk in a ground-floor study.
Prosecutors said that after resigning from the CIA in
November 2012, Petraeus had signed a form falsely attesting he had no
classified material. He also lied to FBI agents by denying he supplied the
information to Broadwell, according to court documents.
Petraeus admitted having an affair with Broadwell when he
resigned as CIA director. Both have publicly apologized and said their romantic
relationship began only after he had retired from the military.
Broadwell's admiring biography of him, "All In: The Education
of David Petraeus," came out in 2012, before the affair was exposed.
Petraeus held the CIA post less than a year, but the core of
his identity has been as a military man.
With a Ph.D. and a reputation as a thoughtful strategist,
Petraeus was brought in by President George W. Bush to command multinational
forces in Iraq in 2007, a period when the war began to turn in favor of the
U.S.
Petraeus' command coincided with the "surge" of
American forces in Iraq and a plan to pay Sunni militias to fight al-Qaida in
Iraq.
With American help, the Sunni tribes were able to push out
insurgents and enable U.S. troops to withdraw in 2011. Those same Sunni areas
are now controlled by the Islamic State group, which evolved from the remnants
of al-Qaida after Iraqi's Shiite-led government proved weak.
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