Ex-NSA Official Takes Plea Deal

POLITICO reports:

BALTIMORE — With the Obama administration facing its first big test in its war on leaks of classified information, the Justice Department blinked Thursday. Federal prosecutors agreed to dramatically reduce the charges against a former National Security Agency official in exchange for his guilty plea. 

Former NSA executive Thomas Drake was set to go on trial Monday in federal court here on ten felony counts of illegally taking classified information to his home, making false statements to investigators and obstructing justice. Prosecutors alleged that he passed classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter who was working on stories about alleged mismanagement at the NSA. 

But on Thursday afternoon, Drake agreed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor count of exceeding his authorized access to government computers. The charge carries a maximum possible sentence of one year in jail, but in exchange for the plea prosecutors agreed not to seek jail time and to dismiss all the previous charges. 

“The mountain of allegations has brought forth a mouse in conviction,” said Steven Aftergood, who analyzes classified information policy for the Federation of American Scientists. “The outcome pales in comparison to the opening thunder of the indictment and that shows that the government miscalculated both the severity of the offense and the quality of its own evidence.”