Obama plays favorites, protects loose-lipped generals who leak top secret info
James ‘Hoss’ Cartwright investigation grinds to halt; David Petraeus gets light punishment
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Thursday, March 12, 2015
Analysts are questioning whether the White House is protecting one of its inner-circle members in a leak investigation, especially given the
Obama administration’s demonstrated willingness to prosecute and imprison lower-level government employees for providing classified information to the press.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and somewhat of a White House fixture as a close military adviser to President Obama.
For over a year, he reportedly has been the target of a Justice Department criminal investigation. He is suspected of leaking to The New York Times highly classified details of a U.S. cyberwarfare program against Iran and its quest for nuclear weapons. Gen. Cartwright played a critical role in the covert action, whose weapon was a cyberworm called Stuxnet and whose code name was “Olympic Games.”
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The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the probe has come to a halt because the White House fears prosecution would force the administration to disclose secret sources and methods.
Despite the slowdown, Mr. Obama has been the most aggressive president in history in hunting down and prosecuting government personnel who leak.
In six years, the Justice Department has prosecuted nine leakers: One Army soldier; two National Security Agency personnel; two FBI employees; one State Department contractor; two former CIA officers; and, just recently, one retired general. Six have been, or will be, sentenced to prison terms.
David H. Petraeus, like Gen. Cartwright a retired four-star general, received what some consider a slap on the wrist. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count for providing eight classified journals to his lover and biographer. He almost certainly will avoid prison.
The other eight have one thing in common: they are relatively low-ranking employees far from the centers of power and from connections to senior Obama aides.
Not so Gen. Cartwright, who gained wide White House access as the nation’s No. 2 military officer before retiring in August 2011. By law, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman is the principal military adviser to the defense secretary and to the president.
“What? Hypocrisy from the Obama administration?” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst. “Justice in the U.S. is not blind. The blindfold is off and keeping an eye out for friends and family who need protection. The scales of justice are not balanced, but heavily weighted to favor political friends. There’s a complete double standard on how we’re treating these people. It’s just not right. If you’re a favored general, you get a pass.”
Ken Allard, a retired Army intelligence officer, said it appears the White House is protecting Gen. Cartwright under the guise of national security.
“The one thing about these people is that they are consistent in their wrongdoing,” Mr. Allard said. “I was shocked to hear that Hoss Cartwright was being investigated. As a former special agent, I also understood that a number of far more likely suspects abounded in the West Wing. The Justice Department going after Hoss was simply a ploy to divert attention away from those White House officials, who were presumably carrying out their president’s wishes.”
The 2012 report in The New York Times notes a tense meeting at the White House to deal with the Stuxnet worm’s unintended escape out of Iran:
“‘Should we shut this thing down?’ Mr. Obama asked, according to members of the president’s national security team who were in the room.”
The Post story Wednesday quoted an unidentified source as saying the Cartwright investigation has stalled because White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was “unwilling to provide the documentation, citing security concerns, including those relating to sources and methods.”
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