Ex-CIA chief David Petraeus gets probation, is fined $100K for giving classified info to biographer
Once a highly regarded military leader in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, retired four-star general David Petraeus on Thursday was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine for revealing classified information to his biographer and then-lover, Paula Broadwell.
The fine imposed by a federal judge in Charlotte, North Carolina, was far more than the $40,000 the government had agreed to in a plea deal. However, not requiring Petraeus to serve any prison time was controversial within the U.S. Department of Justice, reports the New York Times (reg. req.), relying on unidentified law enforcement sources.
They said the F.B.I. and some prosecutors argued for prison time. Petraeus not only potentially put national security at risk by revealing classified information but lied to the F.B.I. about doing so. Not requiring a more severe sanction than probation was inconsistent with the way that lower-level individuals found guilty of similar conduct had been sentenced, objectors said.
They include attorney Abbe Lowell, whose client, former government contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, got 13 months for revealing classified State Department information to a Fox News reporter. Lowell called the no-time sentence for Petraeus a “profound double standard” in a letter to the DOJ after the retired general’s plea deal was publicized, according to CNN and the Times.
Petraeus, who resigned from his position as director of the C.I.A. after his extramarital affair with Broadwell was revealed, is now a partner at the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts private equity firm. In demand throughout the world as a speaker, he will be allowed to travel internationally, with the permission of his probation officer, reports the Charlotte News & Observer.
