WASHINGTON (AP) – The FBI’s recommendation against criminal charges in the Hillary Clinton email matter drew immediate comparisons to last year’s high-profile case in which the agency took the opposite position and pursued the prosecution of then-CIA Director David Petraeus.
The Petraeus case, long seen by some as a potentially analogous investigation into the mishandling of government secrets, resurfaced within minutes of the FBI’s announcement on Tuesday when Republican presidential Donald Trump tweeted: “The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less.”
But that statement is dubious. Though both investigations examined the handling of classified information by powerful government officials, and both drew the attention of the highest-ranking officials of the FBI and the Justice Department, the probes are separated by critical distinctions.
In Clinton’s case, for instance, FBI Director James Comey said that though the former secretary of her state and her aides had been “extremely careless” with classified information that flowed through her private email server, there was no evidence that anyone intended to violate laws that govern the handling of secret records.
Yet when Petraeus pleaded guilty last year to sharing binders of classified information with his biographer, a woman with whom he was having a sexual relationship, the Justice Department made clear that the retired Army general knew the material was top secret when he divulged it and had lied to the FBI about it.