“... there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s... where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.” @BarackObama
2017: Obama Pardons James Cartwright, General Who Lied to F.B.I. About Leaking Classified Info Re: Operation Olympic Games, an American-Israeli covert effort to sabotage Iranian nuclear centrifuges with a computer virus. #ObamaGate nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/…
General Cartwright, who was a key member of Obama’s national security team in his first term and earned a reputation as Obama’s favorite general, pleaded guilty to misleading (lying) to investigators looking into the leaking of classified info about cyberattacks against Iran.
General Cartwright left government in 2011. The leak investigation that ensnared him began in June 2012, when David E. Sanger, a reporter for @nytimes, published a book, “Confront and Conceal,” and an article in The Times that described Operation Olympic Games.
F.B.I. agents came to believe that General Cartwright had also been a source for a February 2012 Newsweek article that discussed cyberattacks against Iran.
But when F.B.I. agents interviewed the retired general about the book and articles, he initially lied about his discussions with the journalists, according to a government sentencing memo.
The memo said the agents showed the general emails that contradicted his account, and he passed out and was hospitalized. Several days later, when the interview resumed, he changed his account of the discussions.
