Petraeus set to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials
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  1. #1

    Petraeus set to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials

    Petraeus set to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials



    David H. Petraues, then a U.S. Army general, is seen here with Paula Broadwell, his biographer and onetime mistress. (Reuters)
    By Adam Goldman April 23 at 7:00 AM

    David H. Petraeus, a retired general considered one of the greatest military minds of his generation, is expected to plead guilty Thursday afternoon to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials he provided to his former mistress and biographer.

    The plea agreement follows a high-profile investigation and prosecution that triggered his resignation as CIA director and put his freedom in jeopardy as the FBI sought to charge him with more serious crimes.

    As part of the deal, Petraeus, 62, will admit in federal court in Charlotte that he improperly retained highly sensitive information in eight personal notebooks that he gave his biographer, Paula Broadwell, to read.

    [Petraeus reaches deal to plead guilty to misdemeanor]

    If the judge approves the plea agreement, Petraeus will be spared prison time and leave the courtroom a free man, facing a two-year probationary period and a $40,000 fine.

    The deal angered FBI agents who worked on the two-year investigation and who thought Petraeus should have been treated more harshly because of the information in the notebooks and what they considered his lack of candor while running the CIA.

    When FBI agents confronted him in his CIA office in October 2012, Petraeus said he had never provided classified information to Broadwell, prosecutors said.

    Making a false statement to a federal law enforcement agent during an investigation is a felony, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

    But according to the plea agreement, Petraeus was given immunity from further prosecution in connection with any other criminal offenses.

    In 2007, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Richard B. Cheney’s former chief of staff, was convicted of lying to FBI agents for his role in the leak of an undercover CIA officer’s identity. Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison but President George W. Bush later commuted the sentence.

    It’s unclear whether the guilty plea will affect the former CIA director’s security clearances and his access to the White House, where he has counseled senior administration officials on how to combat the Islamic State.
    The FBI began investigating Petraeus in 2012 after Broadwell sent threatening e-mails to Jill Kelley, a Florida woman who knew the general from his days in Tampa. Kelley, unaware of the sender’s identity, called the FBI. The bureau later traced the messages to Broadwell and uncovered explicit e-mails between her and Petraeus.

    Agents also learned that Broadwell was in possession of classified documents, triggering an investigation of how she obtained them.

    The FBI later searched Petraeus’s house in April 2013 and found the books in an unlocked drawer in his study. The books contained top-secret information that the Justice Department said could cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security if disclosed.

    The books had code words for secret intelligence programs, identities of covert officers, war strategy and deliberative discussions with the National Security Council.

    Although Petraeus provided Broadwell books to help her write the general’s memoir, prosecutors said her book, “All In,” did not contain classified information.

    It’s unclear whether Broadwell will be charged. Any prosecution, current and former officials said, could prove difficult given that Petraeus faces only a misdemeanor.

    Her attorney declined to comment.

    Petraeus now serves as chairman of the KKR Global Institute, a part of the private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

    In December 1996, then-CIA Director John Deutch resigned after it was discovered that he had stored highly classified documents on his home computer, which was connected to the Internet.

    After a criminal investigation, Deutch agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $5,000 fine. But before the prosecutors could file the papers in federal court, President Bill Clinton pardoned him on his last day in office.


    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...9-3012c1cd8d1e



  2. #2

    Re: Petraeus set to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials

    U.S. Shale Fracklog Triples as Drillers Keep Oil From Market


    by Lynn DoanDan Murtaugh 6:00 AM EDT April 23, 2015
    Think the U.S. is awash in crude now? Thank the fracklog that it’s not worse.
    Drillers in oil and gas fields from Texas to Pennsylvania have yet to turn on the spigots at 4,731 wells they’ve drilled, keeping 322,000 barrels a day underground, a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis shows. That’s almost as much as OPEC member Libya has been pumping this year.

    The number of wells waiting to be hydraulically fractured, known as the fracklog, has tripled in the past year as companies delay work in order to avoid pumping more oil while prices are low. It’s kept crude off the market with storage tanks the fullest since 1930. The fracklog may slow a recovery as firms quickly finish wells at the first sign of higher prices.
    “Once service costs come down and drillers begin to work through their higher-than-normal backlog, the market should start to price in that supply coming online,” Andrew Cosgrove, an energy analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence in Princeton, New Jersey, said by phone. “It may act as a cap on prices.”
    Futures for U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil tumbled by more than $50 a barrel in second half of last year amid a worldwide glut of crude. They rose $1.35 to $57.51 a barrel at 10:19 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
    Oil production in the lower 48 states would rise 322,000 barrels a day to an average 7.485 million in the fourth quarter of 2016 if drillers start shrinking their fracklogs by 125 wells a month in October, Bloomberg Intelligence models show. The forecast assumes horizontal oil rigs fall another 10 percent through the third quarter and prices are unchanged.
    A second scenario, in which crude prices rebound to $60 to $65 a barrel for an extended period and drillers put rigs back to work, increases supply by 500,000 barrels a day to 7.67 million.

    Growing Fracklog
    The U.S. fracklog has ballooned as drillers wait for prices to recover, with oil wells making up more than 80 percent of the total.
    The Permian Basin, which covers parts of Texas and New Mexico, had the biggest collection of unfracked wells as of February, with 1,540 waiting to be completed. The count totaled 1,250 in Texas’s Eagle Ford formation and 632 in North Dakota’s Bakken shale.
    Last week, Raoul LeBlanc, an oil analyst with Englewood, Colorado-based consultant IHS Inc., pegged the U.S. fracklog at around 3,000 wells. Halliburton Co., the world’s second-biggest provider of oilfield services, estimated there are about 4,000 uncompleted wells, citing “third party estimates.”
    ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Ryan Lance said at the IHS CERAWeek Energy conference in Houston on Monday that increased well completions may exacerbate the supply glut, depending on whether oil demand rises.
    “Those who are drilling and deferring completions -- obviously if they get a price signal that the commodity price is coming back a little bit you’ll see more supply come on,” he said.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...arket-i8u004xl

  3. #3

    Re: Petraeus set to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials

    We Just Got Disappointing Manufacturing Data From all Around The World
    Everywhere was a miss
    by Lorcan Roche Kelly 11:05 AM EDT April 23, 2015



    Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Indices disappointed everywhere today.
    Japan, China, France, Germany and the U.S. all had PMI reports out today that missed expectations. Japan, China and France had readings below 50, signifying contraction.





    t is a continuation of a 2015 downward trend for Japan and China, a continuation of sub-50 numbers for France and a reversal for Germany and the U.S., which had been producing some great numbers so far this year.
    Here's a breakdown of what we have seen so far in 2015.



    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...ound-the-world

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