Edward Snowden claimed that potential Secretary of State and retired Gen. David Petraeus disclosed “far more highly classified” information than he did, according to an interview excerpt published Sunday.
Snowden told Yahoo News’ Katie Couric that the Petraeus case shows “we have a two-tiered system of justice in the United States, where people who are either well connected to government or they have access to an incredible amount of resources get very light punishments.”
Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, has been granted asylum in Russia after disclosing classified secrets about U.S. surveillance. U.S. officials believe Snowden has leaked up to 200,000 classified documents to journalists, but downloaded a total of 1.5 million documents.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said last year that Snowden “has done untold damage” to U.S. intelligence.
Petraeus resigned from the CIA in 2012 after it became known he had divulged classified information in eight bound notebooks to his biographer, Paula Broadwell, with whom he had an affair.
Not only did Petraeus handle far less information, he gave it in hard copy to one person, as opposed to Snowden, who helped share it with the world. In the Petraeus case, none of the classified information contained in his private journals was ever punished or publicly disclosed, nor was there ever a claim that the information damaged national security in any way.
In 2015, Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information and lying to federal agents. He got two years of probation and paid a $100,000 fine.
The former general is one of several under consideration to serve as President-elect Trump’s secretary of state.
