Lawyers for Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA official convicted earlier this year of leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter, have requested a reconsideration of his conviction because two former generals, David Petraeus and James Cartwright, have received far more lenient treatment for what they call similar offenses.
“The principal difference between Mr. Sterling and Generals Petraeus and Cartwright are their respective races and rank,” the new filing states. “Like General Cartwright, General Petraeus is a white, high ranking official … The government must explain why the justice meted out to white generals is so different from what Mr. Sterling faced.”
In January, Sterling was convicted by a jury on nine criminal counts, including violations of the Espionage Act, for leaking classified information to Times reporter James Risen about a CIA effort to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. Sterling is to be sentenced in April and faces a maximum sentence of decades in jail. In a statement after the verdict was announced, Attorney General Eric Holder called the guilty verdict a “just and appropriate outcome.”
But the government is coming under increasing criticism for its uneven prosecution of leakers.
Earlier this month, Petraeus, who led U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the director of the CIA, reached an agreement with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information when he gave his lover and authorized biographer, Paula Broadwell, eight notebooks filled with highly classified information about military plans and secret programs, covert agent names, and confidential discussions he had with senior officials including President Obama. Petraeus, who resigned from the CIA when his affair with Broadwell was revealed, also admitted to lying to the FBI, but he was not charged for that. The plea agreement calls for two years probation and a $40,000 fine but no jail time.
No charges have been filed against Cartwright even though it has been reported that federal prosecutors believe he leaked highly classified information to Times reporter David Sanger about a joint effort by the U.S. and Israel to cripple Iran’s nuclear centrifuges through a cyberattack with a computer worm called Stuxnet. According to The Washington Post, the FBI has interviewed Cartwright on at least two occasions but has stopped short of indicting him.
“The charges faced by General Cartwright could not be more similar to what Mr. Sterling faced,” stated the five-page motion filed yesterday by Sterling’s lawyers, Edward MacMahon Jr. and Barry Pollack. “The only difference between the two cases — aside from the minor detail that the Stuxnet story was published by a different New York Times writer than Mr. Risen — is that General Cartwright is a white high-ranking official and Jeffrey Sterling is an African American man who became an outcast at the CIA following his publically-filed employment discrimination claim.” The motion described the case against Sterling as an instance of “selective prosecution.”
These cases are part of the Obama administration’s controversial crackdown on leakers and whistleblowers. The Department of Justice has used the draconian Espionage Act to charge more officials for leaking to journalists than all previous administrations combined. These prosecutions have targeted journalists as well as their government sources, with the FBI secretly obtaining phone records and emails of reporters from the Times, the Associated Press and Fox News. News organizations have accused the Obama Administration of violating First Amendment protections for a free press.
The Petraeus plea agreement has drawn a significant amount of scrutiny. Earlier this week, the lawyer for Stephen Kim, a former State Department official who pleaded guilty in July to violating the Espionage Act for talking about a classified report on North Korea with a Fox News reporter, released a strongly worded letter to the Department of Justice in which he demanded the immediate release of Kim, who is serving a 13-month sentence. Kim’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, accused the government of “a profound double standard” in its treatment of leakers — making the same argument as Sterling’s lawyer about high-level officials getting wrist slaps for offenses that less-powerful officials are jailed for.
The new motion by Sterling’s lawyers focuses on another volatile issue that the Department of Justice is accused of considering in its decisions to prosecute or not prosecute leakers: race. Sterling, as his lawyers noted, is African American. Kim is Korean-American. Although Lowell has not raised the race issue as directly as Sterling’s lawyers, one of Lowell’s briefs accused FBI agents of making a racial slur against Kim during their search of his house in 2010 (the government subsequently denied any slur had been made). In a much-earlier earlier case that involved allegations of espionage and race, the Taiwanese-born scientist Wen Ho Lee was suspected of stealing secrets from a U.S. nuclear weapons lab in 1999 and was indicted on 59 counts and jailed, but later released after all but one minor charge was dropped.
Previous Intercept stories on leak prosecutions:
Photo:Kevin Wolf/AP
Sterling offended Zionists,as all this anti Iranian garbage is inspired by their opposition to equal rights under law,and P(B)etraeus is one of their boy toys.
Verdict pre-approved in both cases.Let’s see what Sterlings sentence is.(Compared to bucky beaver.What a schlump.)
So how do you explain Cartwright then?
Will “senior administration officials” face felony conviction and prison time for leaking to the Wall Street Journal a story that Israel spied in the US-Iran nuclear talks and used the resulting information to lobby Congress to undermine the negotiations? Or will those “senior administration officials” receive a slap on the hand, or even a pat on the back? The story is just as embarrassing as some of the diplomatic cables that brought Chelsea Manning 35 years in prison.
Putting up with Glenn Greenwald’s narcissism is bad enough, why do we have to deal with race baiting? Unnecessary.
How’s Langley these days?
Noone gives documents or to top it lots of notebooks to another person simply because of sexual attraction?! You need to be a fox to believe all those storytelling…
Well, if Petraues is gulity of passing classified info to his mistress, will she be charged having it?
Two whites don’t make a wrong.
About Democracy – Voters and Elections:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/03/10/thousands-of-u-s-workers-older-than-100-that-might-be-social-security-fraud/
“A recent watchdog review found that at least 6.5 million active Social Security numbers belong to people who are at least 112 years old and likely deceased. Only 35 living individuals worldwide had reached that age… ”
The real fraud isn’t about illicit workers or paying but not/never retrieving social services or a zombie thing. It is about voters and elections: 6.5 Million 112 year old voters in America.
LOL, well I can’t resist this one. : )
I bet this is the reason for not prosecuting Petraeus! I’m sorry but the government gives such lame, made up repsonses that I have to make one too! Mine is more fun!
General Petraeus ( insert prior quote from our recent history) “Never did have sex with that woman!.” ; )
He was actually being a true military patriot ! He suspected that writer of being a double agent! He was using his specically equipped penis to to probe her vagina as he had reason to believe that she was harboring double agents in that location!
See! Now,the American – job -title- defense all makes sense, right?
You might want to add a [sic] after the sentence with “publically” in it. And Mr Sterling’s lawyers might want to spellcheck their court submissions in future.
You might want to add a [sic] after the sentence with “publically” in it. And Mr Sterling’s lawyers might want to spellcheck their court submissions in future.
General Peterus is a glorious war hero who has killed and maimed countless jihadis and other terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, which even I couldn’t do as the war had not yet started. He deserves to be praised, not punished for his manly indiscretions worthy of a gallant soldier.
Nevertheless, you’ve still been making some heads explode lately, General. Perhaps you can also yet achieve such ignominiously gallant glory. ;^)
Since an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is within reach, it doesn’t make any sense if Jeffrey Sterling should be punished for a personal disagreement in the past.
The American state is slightly less in denial about racism than it is about class, discussions of which it hears only as “envy” or “jealousy” of one’s betters. Both these problems are deeply systemic, and nothing can change until the systems are purged.
The scariest thing about all this is that the State is so fearful of the Nation that it has to bankrupt and/or dole out jail time to the “lesser” persons before it can feel satisfied that the danger to itself has been cauterized. This fear of the very people it’s supposed to represent is responsible for a degree of corruption within several of its most powerful agencies, a degree so shocking that it’s not likely it can ever be purged short of a second American revolution.
It’s sad, but these problems are symptoms of decline — a decline so undeniable that US allies are tripping all over each other to become founding members of the AIIB.
Mr. Sterling – It’s the ol’ “You Didn’t Kiss Our Ass Enough” or like the judges like to say, show enough “contrition”.
You don’t get to be a General in the US Armed Forces (or judge in the US) without learning proper ass-kissing etiquette.
In America, there are TWO sets of laws.
The first set s used to protect the political elite…
… The second set is used to prosecute just-us!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/scandal-probe-ensnares-commander-of-us-nato-troops-in-afghanistan/2012/11/13/a2a27232-2d7d-11e2-a99d-5c4203af7b7a_story.html
I’m sure Gen Allen will be in the box shortly. Right after Broadwell, for receiving classified material from Patreaus.
There can be no other course of action to protect America, unless there’s so much espionage going on that further prosecution of the Patreaus scandal might help the terrorists …
Nothing surprising about this; we all know beyond any doubt whatsoever, that the United States, and it’s government, exists to serve the needs of a very, very powerful elite, the .01%ters, a cabal of current and former government officials, including the character in the White House, several top corporate people, numerous military characters, and several foreign nationals, from the same groups in their respective nations
The deck is stacked, the elites have won, and are now engaged in protecting their rumps by enacting all manner of laws to make legal the egregious violations of the American Bill of Rights, and The Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
A domestic kind of jingoism is in full swing, and the targets are the masses here in the once great nation of America.
The apparent belligerence of the American government directed at its own people is extraordinary, and of course it’s belligerence directed at other nations is destroying the little trust that is left.
And the people seem to be still slumbering, content in their ignorance. Soon it will be too late …
So Mel, since you’ve enlightened everyone to their slumbering ignorance, what’s your plan to counteract this injustice before it’s too late?
But of course, Peter. It’s not just “those without the capital get the punishment,” it’s the principle of impunity. The whole point here, or on Wall Street, is to show, to proclaim, that the patrician class can indeed get away with the biggest crimes, while the poor pleb caught shoplifting a loaf of bread gets 5-to-10. It reinforces the message that they rule, you don’t, and you better get used to it.
Rings pretty damned true there, friend. I might’ve gone with “Reconciled Proverbs,” or – maybe that’s a whole seperate chapter.
Apologies about not even proofreading for spelling.
There goes that internship I wanted…
this is just another example of the divide between the ruling class and the working class. The same thing happens in most areas of life. The military is one of the worst.
The torture at Abu Ghriab is an example of the prosecution of just the lower level violators. the financial meltdown of 2007, the top of the heap in the private financial system are never held personally responsible for their policies that lead to criminal activity. Dozens have died working for BP which has been negligent but no high ranking officials have gone to jail. Robert Durst killed and dismembered his neighbor then tried to dispose of the body parts in the gulf but spent over $3 million on lawyers that created doubt that it was a premeditated act of murder. Cameron Willingham was executed, he was convicted of killing his kids in a fire that at least 14 outside experts said was an accidental fire. Many innocent people will go to jail because they plead guilty to lesser charges because they can’t afford a proper legal defense.
The problem is that our legal system gives to much power to the prosecutors to decide who to charge and what to charge them with. The rich and powerful get of lightly because they might help a ambitious DA and those who are not rich and powerful get the sharp end of the stick because it helps the DA keep his job sending them to jail.