Former CIA director David Petraeus, whose once-bright political future was all but destroyed over an affair with his biographer, has agreed to plead guilty to charges that he shared classified material with her for her book.
The plea agreement — which carries a possible sentence of up to a year in prison — represents another blow to the reputation of the retired four-star US Army general who led US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was perhaps the most admired military leader of his generation.
Petraeus, 62, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. The agreement was filed in federal court on Tuesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Paula Broadwell, the general’s biographer and former mistress, lives with her husband and children.
In court papers, prosecutors recommended two years of probation and no prison time, but the judge who hears the plea is not bound by that. No immediate date was set for a court hearing for Petraeus to enter the plea.
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 US President Barack Obama and the US National Security Council, prosecutors said.
Those binders were later seized by the FBI in a 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, Petraeus signed a form falsely attesting he had no classified material.
He also lied to FBI agents in denying he supplied the information to Broadwell, according to court documents.
Petraeus’ lawyers, David Kendall and Robert Barnett in Washington, declined to comment.
A telephone message left for Broadwell was not immediately returned.
Her lawyer, Robert Muse of Washington, said he had no comment.
Petraeus admitted having an affair with Broadwell when he resigned as CIA director in November 2012.
Both have publicly apologized and said their romantic relationship began only after he had retired from the military.
Broadwell’s biography of him, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, came out in 2012, before the affair was exposed.
He held the CIA post for less than a year, not long enough to leave a significant mark on the spy agency.
The core of his identity has been as a military man.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of