Thread by @audiomagnate

THREAD: Let's compare and contrast how General Petraeus and Reality Winner, both convicted of leaking classified information to the press, were treated by our criminal justice system. We'll examine the content of their leaks, the potential damage to our national security of /1

the leaks, their motives, how their cases were prosecuted and their sentencing.
General Petraeus leaked eight binders full of highly classified materials that he had illegally retained from when he was the top military commander in Afghanistan. When questioned by the FBI /2

about the binders he lied to them, a crime for which he was not prosecuted. He turned the binders over to a woman with whom he was having an illicit affair at the time. According to prosecutors the binders contained the names of covert operatives, /3

coalition war strategy, his summaries of the content of private conversations with President Obama and others involved in plotting the course of the military operation as well as other classified information not disclosed /4

by the prosecution. In other words, he turned over a veritable mother lode of all things secret about his time as commander of our forces in Afghanistan.
Let's contrast his leak with the single five page document Reality Winner mailed to The Intercept. We know exactly the/5

contents of her leak except for a few redactions. Here it is: documentcloud.org/documents/3766…
/6

The document itself is a bit wonky, but basically it details how the GRU sent phishing emails to local government officials charged with administering elections. The emails appeared to come from from an election software vendor (assumed to be VR systems) and contained malware /7

Here's an executive summary, part of the leaked document, that shows how the operation worked. /8

Petraeus leaked eight binders full of top secret military information accessible to only him, the top military commander of the Afghanistan war, while Reality Winner leaked a single document available to anyone with her level of security clearance, which presumably includes /9

thousands of low level NSA contractors like herself. I think most people would agree the actual content of the two leaks and their comparative value to an enemy could hardly be more different. /10

Let's move on to the potential damage to national security. The Petraeus binders contained the names of covert operatives working for coalition forces in Afghanistan. The impact of a leak of this nature cannot be understated. The identity of covert operatives /11

is considered the holy grail of classified information. Not only does a leak of this type endanger the lives of the agents, it can compromise entire covert operations that have taken years to establish. It goes without saying that the Taliban would also love to get access /12

to those names and to the war plans and other undisclosed classified information in the Petraeus binders. We spend billions trying to get this type of information from our enemies, especially those we are actively fighting on the battlefield.
In contrast, the information /13

in the document Reality Winner leaked was later released in even more detail in the Mueller Report. No sources or methods were revealed and lives were not endangered. The Winner leak had two major impacts. Election officials were made aware that voter registration rolls /14

voting software, communications and anything else on their computers had been compromised by the Russians. The fact that the FBI chose not to notify election officials of the breech remains a mystery, but the US Election Assistance Commission @EACgov deemed the information /15

that they tweeted out a link to the document almost immediately after it was made public, the first use of #RealityWinner hashtag. In other words, Reality Winner did what the FBI should have done months earlier. As opposed to harming national security, her actions helped /16

secure our voting system and most likely contributed to what Trump's own federal election infrastructure officials called "the most secure in American history."
cbsnews.com/live-updates/2…. /17

There was a second impact of the leak besides improving US election security. For months then president Trump had insisting that claims of Russian election interference on his behalf were merely a "Democrat hoax." The Winner leak laid out irrefutable proof that the Russians /18

had indeed taken active measures to rig the election in his favor. Whether they actually "pulled the trigger" and changed vote tallies remains classified, but the leak did more to delegitimize the Trump presidency than anything that had been uncovered up to that time. /19

In short, Reality Winner embarrassed Donald Trump, but embarrassing a president is not the same as damaging national security.
Now let's examine the motives of the two leakers in our story. Petraeus turned over classified information to a journalist with whom he was sleeping /20

with at the time. She was writing a book about Petraeus and the binders were to be used as source material. At the time he was also considered a likely Republican candidate for President and it may be reasonably conjectured that he assumed a book written by someone with whom /21

he was romantically involved with would cast a favorable light on his achievements in Afghanistan, and help him in his efforts to become the GOP nominee in the upcoming election. The revelations of confidential conversations with then president Obama, with whom he had /22

publicly expressed differences of opinion on how the war should be conducted would be told from his point of view in the book, which again might help him in his quest to become president. In short, Petraeus' motive was to further his political ambitions. /23

We don't have to speculate as to Reality Winner's motives. She told the FBI exactly why she leaked the document when she was questioned at the time of her arrest. She was upset at inaccurate media reports claiming that Russian election interference was limited to social media /24

campaigns. Unlike Petraeus, she simply wanted to set the record straight. /25

"Why can't this be public?" She certainly wasn't seeking fame, fortune or anything other than letting the public know the truth about the nature and extent of Russian election interference on behalf of Trump. Had the Intercept not burned her, nobody today would know her name. /26

When the FBI became aware of General Petraeus' leak of confidential information to a person without proper security clearance they interviewed but did not arrest him. During that questioning he lied to them, feigning innocence. He also lied on a CIA exit form on which he /27

declared he had returned all classified materials and none remained in his possession.
So while Reality Winner was completely forthcoming and fully cooperative with the FBI, Petraeus, who served as Director of the CIA after returning from Afghanistan must have know lying /28

to the FBI was a felony.
Reality Winner was taken into custody after her interview. She was held without bail for fourteen months until pleading guilty in August of 2018 at which point she was transferred to a maximum security prison. General Petraeus was never arrested, /29

despite having committed a felony punishable by a five year sentence during the interview. Reality Winner was charged with a felony under the Espionage Act while General Petraeus eventually plead guilty to a misdemeanor, unauthorized removal and retention of classified /30

material. Reality Winner spent her pre-trial time in a dilapidated county jail in Lincoln Country Georgia and two different overcrowded ICE detention centers, one in Oklahoma and another in Florida. General Petraeus spent his pretrial time working at a lucrative new career /31

working as partner at KKR, a wealthy private equity firm in New York and lecturing as a guest professor at Harvard.
Perhaps the most glaring difference between how these two leakers were treated by the DOJ is in their sentencing. Despite Petraeus having leaked classified /32

information while serving as CIA Director, lying on his exit forms and lying to the FBI, he received no jail time, was fined $100,000 and sentenced to two years unsupervised probation. Reality Winner was sentenced to five years and three months in a maximum security /33

prison in Ft. Worth Texas and three years supervised probation. Last June she was transferred to home confinement where she will remain until November 23rd. Her plea agreement prevents her from speaking about or profiting from her case for the rest of her life.
/end