David Petraeus is a retired U.S. Army general who served as director of the CIA. John Kiriakou cites him as the central example of selective prosecution in national-security cases.
Ten covert operatives, no charge
Per Kiriakou, while he was defending himself against the charge that he had confirmed a single colleague’s surname — a name that was never made public — CIA Director Petraeus “confirmed the names of ten covert CIA officers to his biographer and girlfriend and was never charged.”[1][2]
Kiriakou groups Petraeus with Leon Panetta — who he says publicly identified the Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden to the makers of Zero Dark Thirty — and a disgruntled former CIA officer in Bethesda, Maryland, who outed seven covert operatives on his personal website. None of the three was charged.[3]
”Why were you selectively prosecuted?”
When Kiriakou asked his attorney why these men walked free while he was prosecuted under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the answer was: “because they didn’t blow the whistle on the torture program and embarrass the agency.” Kiriakou’s own framing: “I had aired the CIA’s dirty laundry in public, and that was something that to the CIA was unforgivable.”[4][3]
Ten names, no charge (Scott Michael Nathan)
John Kiriakou contrasts his own prosecution with David Petraeus, who as CIA director revealed the names of ten covert operatives and was never charged — evidence, Kiriakou argues, that his own case was really punishment for whistleblowing, not for confirming a single unpublished surname.[5][6]
The black books and the misdemeanor plea
In several other interviews, Kiriakou gives a more specific account that qualifies his “never charged” framing above. He says Petraeus was ultimately forced to resign as CIA Director not over disclosing classified information to the press, but for giving his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell, access to the CIA’s “black books” — the president’s daily briefing materials, among the most highly classified documents the agency produces.[7] Kiriakou notes the timing: on the day of his own sentencing, Petraeus sent an all-hands email to every CIA employee worldwide declaring that oaths matter and that violators would be prosecuted — then, two hours after hitting send, lied to two FBI officers in his office, denying he had ever given Broadwell classified information.[8][9]
Petraeus was never charged with making a false statement to federal officers. When investigators later confronted him with proof that he had in fact revealed the identities of ten covert CIA officers to Broadwell and given her access to the black books, he pleaded to a misdemeanor — variously described as misuse or failure to secure classified information — paid a fine, and received 18 months of unsupervised probation and no jail time; at sentencing, the judge came down from the bench to shake his hand and thank him for his service.[10][11][12][13][14]