Retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of lying to federal investigators in connection with an investigation into allegations that he had disclosed classified information to two journalists without authorization.
The four-star Marine general made the plea in a hearing before Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Cartwright served as vice chairman on the Joint Chiefs from 2007 to 2011, but was stripped of his security clearance in 2013 during an investigation into his alleged role in leaking classified information to the New York Times pertaining to the Stuxnet virus that crippled Iranian nuclear facilities by causing their centrifuges to spin out of control.
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Cartwright served afterward as a consultant for defense contractor Raytheon and for ABC News, and as the Harold Brown Chair in Defense Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
“It was wrong for me to mislead the FBI on November 2, 2012, and I accept full responsibility for this,” Cartwright said in a statement after his guilty plea. “I knew I was not the source of the story and I didn’t want to be blamed for the leak. My only goal in talking to the reporters was to protect American interests and lives; I love my country and continue to this day to do everything I can to defend it.”
Cartwright’s attorney, Gregory Craig, said his client “has spent his whole life putting the national interest first.”
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“That’s why he talked to reporters in the first place — to protect American interests and lives in a story they had already written. In his conversations with these two reporters, General Cartwright was engaged in a well-known and understood practice of attempting to save national secrets, not disclosing classified information. His effort to prevent publication of information that might harm American lives or national security does not constitute a violation of any law.
The last high-profile military official to face charges of mishandling classified information was former CIA director and retired Gen. David Petraeus, who leaked information both to a mistress and to reporters. Petraeus in 2015 accepted a plea deal that involved acknowledging he made statements to the FBI that “were false” and that he had engaged in the unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. Petraeus received a sentence of two years of probation and a fine of $100,000.
Cartwright, who also headed U.S. Strategic Command while he was in uniform, was considered a front-runner to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but was passed over after he was investigated — though later cleared — for allegedly having an overly friendly relationship with a subordinate.
