Chris Hayes breathlessly reported the shocking story that General Petraeus has been recommend for felony prosecution. Chris Hayes of MSNBC and Eli Lake of Bloomberg News clucked and bemoaned in horror that a General who stroked reporters and even shared his precious bodily fluids with fellow journalists could be considered for arrest and even jail.
Chris Hayes
My jaw hit the floor when I saw this report today. Joining me now is Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake.
EL - Well it is kind of extraordinary, if this is all there is to it, that the Justice Department and the FBI would go to these lengths to protect ostensibly state secrets when in the past, as I said if this is all there is, Sandy Berger and John Deutch, a former CIA Director were basically slapped on the wrist for equivalent I guess crimes in terms of classified information .
CH - We also have a situation where officials of different political parties in the past few years have given journalists classified information routinely almost as a matter of course [amused chuckle]. I've seen things in your reporting I'm sure that was robably classified. I know I read things in the paper all the time that was probably classified. So this would be striking if he were prosecuted in this context.
Sure columnists and TV hosts at this level are dependent of the good will and tidbits from the powerful, but these pundits didn't even come close to acknowledging normal workers lose their security clearances and jobs over much more minor security violations.
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EL - It's nuts as I said .. Paula Broadwell has a security clearance. She was already kinda like briefed in when she tailed him when he commanded the war and wrote her first book. This is not the equivalent of the mega leaks that you saw with now Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden, or for that matter the information that has been made available by the mega hacks that have happened to the CENTCOM computers in 2007 or 2008. ... It's crazy that it would be a felony prosecution of a guy like General Petraeus.
Admiral Fallon, his immediate superior during the Iraq War said of the General:
Fallon told Petraeus [in March] that he considered him to be “an ass-kissing little chickensh*t” and added, “I hate people like that”, the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
Because he was battling an skilled ass-kissing little chickenshit, Admiral Fallon was soon retired and General Petraeus had his job.
General Petraeus has been richly rewarded for his part in some of the most disastrous American military adventures in the last 40 years. The entire debacle in Iraq was crowned when he's trained and supplied Iraqi Army furnished ISIS with a huge stockpile of American supplied weaponry. He walked away from that with incomprehensible praise and glory and has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees. Rather than use his intellect to push for prudent and morale policy he has cultivated and flattered the powerful for position and money even when they were leading the country to dishonor and folly.
Disapproval of the abuse of the lower classes by the legal system is expressed often by journalists like Mr. Lake and Mr. Hayes, but not surprise and shock as when a member of the ruling class is proposed for punishment. There are those who should expect to be stopped and frisked, thrown out of their homes, tear gassed and arrested but not men like the highly decorated General Petraeus friend of hedge fund managers.
Way too many things are classified. Classification is used to hide wrongdoing and waste more than to protect the national interest. That said within the context of national security General Petraeus' reported wrong doing is of the highest level. Paula Broadwell has no "need to know" the documents and correspondence of the chief of the US intelligence agency. Every Department of Defense employee must suffer through annual security briefings warning of all possible breaches. They are warned that they can be punished for possessing or commenting on security information even if it has been published or broadcast.
If the Director of the CIA has given classified information for companionship and favorable biographies he has risked the most sensitive information in the government and by example invited everyone below him to do the same. If he is not prosecuted no one should ever be sanctioned for any security violation.
There is no dark without light and there is no discrimination without privilege. Elitist entitlement has no greater defender than Chris Hayes.