This seems like a pretty serious crime. I can't imagine anyone higher than an officer keeping classified documents, or even contesting that they have any or if they are classified at all!

“It’s also much less exciting than you’d expect. The vast majority of classified information is less “here’s the latest CIA report on Putin’s strategy in Ukraine” and more “because we carried out the radio test with encryption on, all data from said test is now Secret”.”

-- https://www.navalgazing.net/The-American-Secrecy-System

He should have kept them in his garage or on a email server in his bathroom and avoided this whole situation.

What the partisan crazy bot from RUS is going on here?

Two Ukrainian shekels have been deposited into your NAFO account.

I was going to defend you as a generic HN troll, but being an anti-semitic stain on humanity goes a long way to making me agree with jprd.

I’m Jewish. Apologize now.

David Petraeus shared some of the most classified docs in the government with his lover and biographer, which is a top crime. He got a slap on the wrist. DC trades on classified info leaks. I'm unsure specifically what this officer had and did with it, but observably prosecution of classified info breaches is entirely selective and political.

Not super au-fait with this, but I think the person he shared the info with was already a Lt Col[1] in the reserves and so had some clearence already. That doesn't make it ok but significantly reduces the severity of the breach depending on how the documents were used.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Broadwell

What is your legal reasoning for a lesser clearance significantly reducing the severity of the breach?

The wiki only glosses over the classified materials exchange in question with a single sentence.

Here's a better summary:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/03/david-petrae...

"The plea deal establishes that Petraeus shared “black books” with Broadwell with “classified information regarding the identities of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and mechanisms, diplomatic discussions, quotes and deliberative discussions from high-level National Security Council meetings, and defendant David Howell Petraeus’s discussions with the President of the United States of America”.

There isn't a grade to oopsies with clearances and classified info. Either it's a breach or it isn't. I've read Petraeus's breach being considered legally worse than Snowden's, given what was disclosed.

To my prior point, prosecutors make prosecution decisions in regard to classified info selectively and politically. In addition to selectively meting punishment.

That's pretty terrible. I hadn't realised quite how bad the breach was. Seems incredibly unfair to have got off so lightly.

It wouldn't be at all surprising to discover that only 10% of classified documents are legitimately worth keeping secret, and the other 90% are classified to hide various forms of waste, fraud, corruption etc. in military-industrial and intelligence-agency contracting deals from public scrutiny.

Oh it’s way lower than that. Once you’re past a certain door everything including the toilet paper is marked SECRET, just in case. Why not? Better be safe than sorry. And who has the time to actually evaluate every document?

Source: I worked behind that door.

A system that needs serious reform in the public's interest.

Punishment always accounts for your social status, fame and wealth.

Doesn't the US legal system use precedents?

If so could that mean that someone else with the same felony (say, D Trump) will get the same because precedent?

I am not a lawyer, we do not have this system (each case is reviewed independently) - just curious.

I'm an Australian lawyer and we have things called sentencing guidelines. They are basically precedent or rules for sentencing specifically. Depends on the crime as well whether it is featured in the guidelines. https://www.cdpp.gov.au/publications/sentencing-federal-offe...