How David Petraeus Avoided Felony Charges And Possible Prison Time
By Adam Goldman January 25 at 2:09 PM
Inside a secure conference room on the 6th floor of the Justice Department in early 2014, top federal law enforcement officials gathered to hear what criminal charges prosecutors were contemplating against David H. Petraeus, the storied wartime general and former CIA director whose public career had ended about 15 months earlier over an extramarital affair.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and FBI Director James B. Comey listened as prosecutors did a mock run through the government’s case, a preview of how they would present their evidence to Petraeus’ lawyers in order, they hoped, to force a guilty plea.
The presentation included felony charges: lying to the FBI and violating a section of the Espionage Act. A conviction on either carried potentially years in prison.
They were also considering bringing the same charges against his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell.
The government would never file those charges. Not everyone at Justice shared the prosecutors confidence, and lawyers for Petraeus and Broadwell separately pushed back hard, saying they would fight and beat the charges being considered by the Justice Department. Moreover, with its mix of sex and government secrets, a trial promised to be an uncomfortably tawdry affair, one some in government — as well as the defense — preferred to avoid.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-david-petraeus-avoided-felony-charges-and-possible-prison-time/2016/01/25/d77628dc-bfab-11e5-83d4-42e3bceea902_story.html
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underpants
(182,829 posts)Thanks
Wilms
(26,795 posts)No wonder Holder backed off. Sounds terrifying.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)suspected of Holder and the DOJ,Petraeus,Big Banks,Big Pharma,and the really big one Voter Suppression,the Guy was MIA. Should have seen this coming,the Guy was a lifer in the Justice Department and just another don't bust rich whitie or their friends. And we wonder why trust is missing in action today.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Holder always seemed scared of his own shadow. Maybe he had reason to be--but too much blatant criminality wasn't followed through with prosecution under his watch. Also, he lagged in dealing with Voter Rights law suits causing problems in both our mid-term elections. He always seemed to be just about himself.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)as his mentor. Agree in the image thing,hand picked by Summers and Rubin. Notice he now back at his old law firm Covey-Burley and is in charge of their Financial interest sector,or like I called it,head lawyer for Wall Street.
valerief
(53,235 posts)
shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)I believe that 225,000 rifles and pistols went missing on his watch. Some say it was only 190,000 but other reports list over two hundred thousand. I mean WTF? If a private misplaced her M-16, it was a stripe, 3 months pay and extra duty. If a goddamned three-star general loses a shit-ton of weapons, he gets another star? Playing fast and loose with classified information between the sheets? How about the top job at the CIA? And people are worried about Hillary's e-mails? Sheeesh. And to think that the butt-kiss media and military suck-ups were pushing for this guy to get a 5th star. Unfrigginbelievable!!!!!!!! Oh, and by the way folks, the surge was pure media bullshit. Didn't work, cost lots of money and paved the way for the complete Sunni-Shiite split in Iraq which opened the door for al qaeda 3.0 or ISIS to join the party.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)“Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy,” Petraeus had said.
Petraeus’s lawyer, David E. Kendall, declined to comment. But another person familiar with the meeting said he described the lying charge as “a nonstarter.” The Kiriakou reference was also off the table, he said.
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This hotshot lawyer is the most important man fighting Hillary Clinton’s e-mail war
by Massimo Calabresi, TIME.com
For Clinton, the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, the developments are a thicket of political, bureaucratic and legal challenges that threaten to stall her campaign and further damage her trust with voters. For Kendall, the challenge is to deliver his expertise in a context where legal fallout is only half the battle.
In one sense, Clinton and Kendall are well matched. Both excelled at law school and they sought out each others’ advice early in their careers. Kendall called her when he needed a contact in Arkansas, where she worked as a young attorney while Bill Clinton pursued politics.
And she called Kendall when she needed advice from D.C., where he had joined Washington’s premier litigation firm, Williams and Connolly, after clerking for Supreme Court Justice Byron White and specializing in death penalty appeals at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York.
It was when the Clintons arrived in Washington with the baggage of the Whitewater investigation that they really reconnected with Kendall, however, hiring him to defend them against accusations of improper business dealings.
And when Clinton found himself needing to prepare for grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky investigation four years later, it was Kendall who prepared him.
“His job was to make sure there was never a criminal charge against the president,” says one member of Bill Clinton’s legal team, and “his preparation [of Clinton for the grand jury testimony] will go down as one of the best ever.”
Originally from "Time" Magazine...and a great read at "Business Insider"
http://mobile.businessinsider.com/hillary-clintons-lawyer-david-kendall-2015-8?op=1
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Chapter 37 of Michael Hastings book "The Operators"...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016130893