This
time... I'll let Andrew C. McCarthy lay out the case:
* * *
David
Petraeus, the former top U.S. military commander and CIA director, is
reportedly being permitted by the Obama Justice Department to plead guilty to a
misdemeanor in order to end the criminal investigation into his "mishandling" of
highly classified information.
* "MISHANDLING" MY ASS! IT WAS A STRAIGHT QUID PRO QUO FOR SEX!
It is [also]
just another example of Obama’s hyper-politicized administration of justice:
One set of rules for government insiders like Petraeus, another set for most
Americans, and a third — law as a weapon — for use against Obama’s political
detractors and scapegoats.
General
Petraeus committed several serious felony violations of federal law. And not in
a one-off lapse of judgment; this was a series of offenses committed over an
extended period of time.
Clearly,
Petraeus believed he was a law unto himself.
A
notorious publicity seeker, he treated journals chronicling his highly
classified activities as if they were his own property, to be maintained and
exhibited as he saw fit — mainly, for use in burnishing his carefully cultivated
image — rather than as federal law dictates.
Even
after he was caught, he continued to lie, obstruct justice, and put the
government that had so elevated him to additional burdens to recover the
records he was illegally hoarding.
Had he
not negotiated a plea, Petraeus should have been charged in a multi-count [federal felony]
indictment.
If he
wanted to dispose of the case without a trial that would have further disgraced
him, he should have been required to plead guilty to at least one felony count
and to have admitted his lies to government officials — misrepresentations
that, under the sentencing guidelines that apply to people who don’t get
special treatment, instruct judges to impose a term of incarceration.
Petraeus,
instead, will get... a slap on the wrist.
* AND
THE AMERICAN SHEEPLE ARE FINE WITH THAT APPARENTLY!
(*GNASHING MY TEETH*)
The New York
Times reports that Petraeus will be permitted to plead guilty to a single
misdemeanor count of "unauthorized removal and retention of classified
information."
* FOLKS.
THAT'S NOT WHAT HE DID. HE DIDN'T SIMPLY BRING HIS WORK "HOME" FROM
THE OFFICE WHEN THE "RULES" SAID HE COULD ONLY DO IT AT THE OFFICE.
NO! HE TECHNICALLY COMMITTED ESPIONAGE!
* NOR WAS HIS TREASON AN ACT OF
CONSCIENCE, RATHER, IT WAS AN APPARENT QUID PRO QUO FOR SEX! (THE MAN TRADED
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION - INCLUDING WAR PLANS AND THE IDENTITIES OF CERTAIN HUMAN
ASSETS - FOR SEX!
Moreover,
while [even] that [reduced] charge carries a potential punishment of one year’s
imprisonment, the Justice Department has agreed to recommend a sentence of just
two years’ probation plus a $40,000 fine.
* WITH
NO DOUBT A "FUND" SET UP TO PAY THE FINE.
In
connection with the disposition of the criminal case, the U.S. attorney for the
western district of North Carolina (in Charlotte) has filed a document outlining
the factual basis for the guilty plea — i.e., what prosecutors would be in a
position to prove were Petraeus to exercise his right to a trial. It explains
that, in his tenure as commander of the U.S. and coalition forces in
Afghanistan, Petraeus maintained journals: five-by-eight-inch notebooks that
contained his daily schedule and notes he took regarding matters that were
discussed in meetings and briefings. Eventually, there were eight journals in
all, and they were known as Petraeus’ “black books.”
As he
well knew, the black books contained extremely sensitive classified
information, including, according to the prosecution’s outline, “the identities
of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and mechanisms,
diplomatic discussions, quotes and deliberative discussions from high-level
National Security Council meetings, and defendant David Howell Petraeus’
discussions with the President of the United States of America.”
* THE
IDENTITIES OF COVERT OFFICERS...!!!
As is
now widely known, Petraeus had an extramarital affair with his biographer,
Paula Broadwell, a former Army reserve officer who interviewed him during 2011
for her fawning book.
On
August 4, 2011, after he returned to the U.S. from Afghanistan but a few weeks
before he took over as CIA director, Petraeus submitted to a tape-recorded
interview in which Broadwell asked him about the black books, noting that she
and Petraeus had never gone through them together. Petraeus replied, “Umm,
well, they’re really — I mean they are highly classified, some of them. . . . I
mean, there’s code-word stuff in there.”
(“Code
word” is a designation for extremely high-level classified information. Even
officials with top-secret clearances are generally not eligible to be “read in”
on national-defense secrets categorized as “code word.” Access is tightly
restricted to officials with a “need to know” the information in order to
perform their highly sensitive — and often deadly dangerous — responsibilities.)
Nevertheless,
about three weeks later, on August 27, Petraeus agreed in an e-mail to provide
the black books to his mistress/biographer.
He
delivered them to her the next day at a private residence where she was staying
during a one-week trip to Washington.
(Needless
to say, that residence was not approved for storage of classified information.
Such storage areas are equipped with various protections, and access to them is
tightly controlled, as is appropriate for national defense secrets. Yet
Petraeus permitted Broadwell to keep the black books [there] for three days.)
The
provision of such classified information to a person not entitled to receive it
is a felony violation of the Espionage Act...
* AS I
WROTE ABOVE... "ESPIONAGE."
...punishable
by up to ten years’ imprisonment.
* WHY
NOT PUNISHABLE BY DEATH... OR AT LEAST LIFE IN PRISON...? SEARCH ME...
Moreover,
specifically with respect to revelations about covert agents, it is a felony
violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) for a government
official, intentionally and without authorization, to disclose information that
identifies a covert agent whose identity the government is trying to conceal.
IIPA offenses are punishable by up to 15 years’ imprisonment...
* SO NOW
WE'VE GOT "UP TO 15 YEARS..."
Obama
administration officials and the general’s apologists stress that there is no
indication Petraeus harmed the United States or helped a foreign government by
disclosing the nation’s most closely held secrets.
*
CERTAINLY EVERYONE WITH AN IQ OVER 60 CAN SEE WHY THIS IS NEITHER HERE NOR
THERE - EVEN IF TRUE; WHICH WE DON'T KNOW IF IT IS OR IT'S NOT!
Other
provisions of federal law cover that kind of treasonous behavior. By contrast,
the statutes that Petraeus violated do not require proof that harm was done —
or even intended. Rather, because of the significance of the information to
national security — coupled with the fact that, to acquire the information, our
government must often promise to keep it secret and secure — Congress has made
its mere unauthorized transmission a felony. At most, the lack of actual or
intended harm to the United States is a sentencing issue, calling for a term of
years at the lower end of the ten- or 15-year statutory range. It is not a
defense.
None of
this was news to Petraeus. After he took the helm at CIA — i.e., a few months
after he had illegally provided classified information to Broadwell — he
personally issued an admonition to all CIA employees that “unauthorized
disclosures of any sort . . . betray the public trust, our country and our
colleagues.”
*
THEN-CIA DIRECTOR PETRAEUS CONTINUED...
“We
swore to safeguard classified information,” he added, and “those oaths stay
with us for life.”
*
FRANKLY... IF THE MAN HAD AN OUNCE OF CHARACTER... HE'D EAT HIS GUN.
In mid-2012,
Broadwell bizarrely harassed an acquaintance of Petraeus’s in Florida. Owing to
a resulting investigation, which included examination of Broadwell’s computer,
the FBI learned about the affair and the likelihood that Petraeus had
mishandled classified information. Though not a target of the investigation at
the start, Petraeus was interviewed several times and acknowledged that he
understood it was a felony to make false statements to FBI agents conducting an
investigation. That, of course, is common knowledge, especially among
government officials.
* THAT'S
WHY OL' LOIS LERNER (LATE OF OBAMA'S IRS) TOOK THE 5TH - TO AVOID OPENING
HERSELF UP TO PERJURY CHARGES!
As CIA
director, though, Petraeus was more well aware than most. As he knew, the feds
were then wrapping up an investigation of John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent who
had disclosed the identity of a covert agent to a reporter. Kiriakou was
originally charged with violating the IIPA and the Espionage Act, as well as
making false statements to the FBI — again, all felonies. The Obama Justice
Department required Kiriakou to plead guilty to the IIPA felony and serve two
and a half years in prison. Only in exchange for that were the other two
charges dropped.
(Even
that short-changed the misconduct, at least according to the sentencing judge,
who said she’d have imposed a much harsher sentence were it not for the plea
agreement.)
* I'M
WITH THE JUDGE!
Petraeus
cheered Kiriakou’s prosecution in an announcement to all CIA employees on
October 23, 2012, asserting: “Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences
for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers
and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree
of secrecy.”
*
WHAT... A... PIECE... OF... SHIT...
Three
days after Kiriakou pled guilty, Petraeus was interviewed by FBI agents. As the
prosecution’s outline recounts: The [FBI] agents questioned David Howell
Petraeus David about the "mishandling"
of classified information. In response to those questions, defendant David
Howell Petraeus stated that (a) he had never provided any classified information
to his biographer, and (b) he had never facilitated the provision of classified
information to his biographer.
(As the
outline elaborates, these statements were false: Petraeus was patently aware
that he had shared his black books with Broadwell. And given that Petraeus knew
the FBI had been investigating Broadwell for months, it is astonishing that he
would tell such foolish lies.)
(*SIGH*)
Yet, David
Howell Petraeus was far from done lying!
Once
President Obama’s re-election was secured in November 2012, Petraeus’ affair
became public and he resigned from the CIA in disgrace.
* I
WONDER WHAT THE STATUS OF HIS PENSION(S) IS/ARE?
In a
public statement, Petraeus expressed remorse, calling his behavior
“unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as
ours.” About two weeks after his resignation, however, at his CIA exit
interview on November 26, when he was formally read out of various classified
programs, Petraeus made the following representation: “I give my assurance that
there is no classified material in my possession, custody, or control at this
time.”
* THE
THING IS...
Petraeus
was still retaining the black books.
He
continued to hoard them even after the secured facility for classified
information that had been installed in his home was closed and de-accredited in
early 2013.
In the
end, unable to trust Petraeus’ assurances, the FBI had to get a
court-authorized search warrant (on showing probable cause of Petraeus’
criminality) to recover the classified information. On April 5, 2013, agents
searched the Petraeus residence and found the books in an unlocked desk drawer
in his first-floor study.
*
UNFRIGGIN'BELIEVABLE... (ONLY... THIS BEING THE AGE OF OBAMA... IT'S TOTALLY
BELIEVABLE!)
David
Petraeus: He committed serious violations of national-security law. He gave
repeated false assurances that he was not concealing classified information. He
lied to FBI agents about disclosing that information — at the same time he was
hypocritically warning subordinates to honor their secrecy oaths, and was
praising the Justice Department’s felony prosecution of a CIA agent who was
guilty of the same kinds of offenses that Petraeus himself was then committing.
David
Patraeus: So untrustworthy was he that the government was put to the burden of
going to court for permission to search his home to recover classified
information Petraeus should never have taken and was obliged to return on
request. And there they found the black books — secrets of the most sensitive
nature that he cavalierly kept in an unsecured desk.
That [these
outrages... these betrayals... are] treated...as a trifling misdemeanor is
another shameful chapter in the Obama legacy of politicized justice.
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