Former CIA Director General David Petraeus

By Elaine Magliaro

Former CIA Director David Petraeus, who is expected to formally plead guilty “to mishandling classified materials” next month, is scheduled to be sentenced on April 27th. Petraeus, who also served as the top U.S. general in Iraq and Afghanistan, “was accused earlier this year of giving classified materials to Paula Broadwell, his mistress and biographer, while he held the top job at the CIA.” Petraeus

Petraeus has acknowledged that he gave Broadwell several notebooks, which “contained highly classified information that he had compiled during his time as a top general, including the identities of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities, and discussions with President Obama.”

Jeff Stein of Newsweek reported earlier today that the disgraced general still remains a trusted White House adviser, “despite admitting to sharing highly classified information with his erstwhile mistress Paula Broadwell and lying to the FBI about it.” Stein said that an unnamed White House official had confirmed to Newsweek “that the former CIA director and Iraq war hero has been advising the National Security Council on Iraq and the Islamic State, known as ISIS, since last summer.” Yet, according to the official, Petraeus “no longer has a CIA security clearance.”

Stein:

Petraeus has long led a charmed life with the Obama administration. While several other low-ranking national security officials have been prosecuted on espionage charges for leaking information, Petraeus was charged with only one count of mishandling classified information, under a plea deal approved this month by Attorney General Eric Holder–and fiercely opposed by prosecutors.

Stein noted that while judges routinely rubber-stamp plea deals between prosecutors and defendants, “U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler could decide to ditch the lenient arrangement Petraeus’s attorneys negotiated–a $40,000 fine and probation–in favor of something stiffer, a knowledgeable government official said.” He said that the “judge could sentence him to up to a year in prison, a $100,000 fine and five years’ probation.”

Stein reported that although the prosecutors and special agents who had worked on the Petraeus case wanted the former CIA Director “charged with a felony,” the “administration put on the brakes, according to some close observers, in order to keep Petraeus from joining other top former officials, such as former defense secretary Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, who ran both the Pentagon and CIA under President Barack Obama, in criticizing the president’s handling of foreign policy.”

Stein said that Petraeus “could not immediately be reached for comment and the White House refused further comment.”

Stein wrote that the Petraeus case “is studded with curiosities.” He said, “By choosing not to file a criminal complaint against Petraeus, which would almost certainly be supported with a detailed affidavit from the FBI, the Justice Department avoided airing even more embarrassing details about what was contained in his ‘black books.’” He added that the department’s 15-page statement of facts was suggestive enough: “In a taped August 4, 2011 interview with Broadwell…Petraeus can be heard saying of his black books, ‘They’re really–I mean they are highly classified, some of them. They don’t have [top secret] on it, but I mean there’s code word stuff in there.’”

Petraeus’s sentencing hearing may not mark the end of his woes. Stein said that the CIA inspector general had “probed whether Petraeus misused his security detail in carrying on his affair with Broadwell, and the Army could still take action against him for mishandling classified information while on active duty.”

SOURCE

Petraeus Advising White House on ISIS (Newsweek)

David Petraeus to be sentenced for classified leaks on April 23 (CBS News)