In an unprecedented news conference today, the spouse of a jailed CIA whistleblower is speaking out. Holly Sterling, the wife of imprisoned former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, will appear at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to appeal for a presidential pardon. Sterling is serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence for leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen about a failed U.S. effort to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. Risen later exposed how the risky operation could have actually aided the Iranian nuclear program. In January, Sterling was convicted of nine felony counts, including espionage.
Holly Sterling talking:
Jeffrey is in prison currently right now because he was convicted of espionage. The press conference today is to make people aware of what has happened, but most importantly, I have written a letter to President Obama asking for the immediate pardon of Jeffrey.
Norm Solomon talking:
the case is significant for civil liberties and for freedom of the press and, really, the public’s right to know, with informed consent, in what’s supposed to be a democracy. The challenge is for people to recognize that at many levels the Obama administration is continuing to wage an enormous war on whistleblowing and investigative journalism, in tandem with the tightening, even further, through technology and political choice, of the surveillance state and continued warfare around the planet, as we’ve heard again in the news today in terms of a warfare state.
So the precedents are chilling in many respects. And a few of them, briefly, include that Jeffrey Sterling was convicted on the basis entirely of circumstantial evidence. The government presented a mosaic of supposedly incriminating information that involved entirely legal activities by Jeffrey Sterling. And it should be made clear that Jeffrey is a whistleblower because, through legal channels, he went to the Senate Intelligence Committee as a former CIA case officer to give information about a botched and dangerous CIA operation involving nuclear weapon design transmittal to Iran. So, the precedents are very dangerous because, in a real sense, they’re a warning shot across the bow not only for journalists and potential whistleblowers, but for any government official who even legally goes through channels to provide concerns and information to appropriate officials, who legally speaks to journalists. What happened to Jeffrey Sterling was, in the trial itself, those legal activities were turned against him and used as circumstantial evidence toward conviction.
The government raided the home of Jeffrey Sterling and Holly Sterling in 2006, as I recall. And Holly was hauled before a grand jury and in front of the FBI in the D.C. area. And then, for several years, nothing happened. And it wasn’t until the Obama administration came in when suddenly Jeffrey, who had gone back into private employment—an exemplary inspector against insurance fraud—was suddenly indicted and arrested and taken into custody. And then there was a dragged-out several years while the government attempted to force the excellent New York Times investigative reporter James Risen to essentially rat on his sources for his book State of War about the Bush administration. And to his credit, Risen absolutely refused to do that. And so, after many years, Jeffrey Sterling was finally taken to trial early this year.
Holly Sterling talking:
Jeffrey was the first African-American case officer to file a suit against the CIA. And that, that played a major part in the trial, I believe. You know, Jeffrey had upset the CIA, and because of that, they went after him as really the only source, potential source, for Mr. James Risen’s book. And so, subsequently, you know, no one else—no one else was investigated except Jeffrey.
I had just gotten home from testifying at the grand jury. And Jeffrey and I were home. Approximately 20 minutes after arriving home, my lawyer called to tell me that the FBI was on their way, because they did have a search warrant. And I’d like to note out that my lawyer said that this never happens. He’s never had, in the history of him being a criminal lawyer, the FBI calling to alert him that his client’s home is going to be raided. He said that means they have nothing on Jeffrey.
So, approximately about 10 minutes later after that phone call, there was a knock at the door, and about 15 agents surrounded our home, came in. They went methodically through our home. They were very polite. They asked, you know, “Is this the room where you said you had a computer?” took everything out, wearing gloves, putting things in brown paper bags, you know, and went through, put everything back. At one point, one of the agents went over to Jeffrey and showed him a subpoena for his work laptop. And the agent went to take Jeffrey’s actual suitcase that had the laptop in it. And many people may not know, but Jeffrey was a licensed lawyer before he was convicted, and read the subpoena and said, “It does not include the contents of the bag; it only includes the laptop,” and so took out the laptop and gave that to the agent.
Norman Solomon talking:
President Obama has the power to respond to Holly Sterling’s letter today by issuing an immediate pardon for Jeffrey Sterling and getting him out of prison, where he’s been now for four months and is scheduled not for release until the middle of the year 2018. So the president could halt this, really, persecution, I would say, of Jeffrey Sterling that’s been going on for more than a decade, when you trace back the origins of what ordeal he and Holly Sterling have gone through.
Holly Sterling talking:
this has been going on for over a decade. And unfortunately, Jeffrey really was—did not get any press coverage during this. It actually somewhat became the Risen case. And he’s been done a great injustice. He’s completely innocent. They had absolutely no evidence to state that Jeffrey had done this. Special Agent Ashley Hunt on cross-examine stated that fact, that there was absolutely no email records, no phone call records; no one had witnessed the two being together exchanging classified information. In fact, she said that she speculated that Jeffrey was the source. So he has been wrongly convicted, and I just think that, you know, he needs to be pardoned, that this was a grave injustice. And he does not need to be in prison for the next three-and-a-half years.
He actually is in Colorado. During the sentencing hearing, the judge had stated that he should be placed nearest to our home. We live in St. Louis, Missouri. Colorado obviously is not near our home; it’s approximately 900 miles away. I had to get permission to see Jeffrey. And I have been able to see him three times, once a month, since he’s gone in. It is extremely costly for me to go there—flight, airfare—excuse me—hotel, rental car. We get to visit approximately six hours a day on Saturday and Sunday. We sit in a room. We are able to sit next to one another. But the unfortunate thing is that Jeffrey is demoralized when I visit by having to go through a strip search before and after our visit.
Norm Solomon talking:
Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project wrote a piece for Salon.com in May called “The shocking court case that proves the government’s shameful Petraeus hypocrisy.” In it, she asks why former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling faced two decades in prison, while former CIA Director General David Petraeus got two years’ probation for similar charges. Radack writes, “Petraeus, who gave a far greater volume of classified and potentially harmful information to his mistress, was given a sweetheart plea deal and was never charged—with anything. Conveniently, his sweetheart plea deal was to a misdemeanor not under the Espionage Act. Similarly, former CIA directors Leon E. Panetta and John O. Brennan, both of whom disclosed the identities of undercover operatives, were never charged.”
This entire episode, which continues with Jeffrey Sterling, is part of a huge pattern of selective prosecution, in the case of Leon Panetta; selective sentencing, in terms of General David Petraeus. And it shows how the entire judicial and executive branch process, in terms of assessing and prosecuting classified leaks, is just riddled with pollution and poisoned by political power. This administration, worse than any other in memory in this regard, has totally turned the prosecution of leaks into a politicized set of vendettas. And I think it’s necessary—it’s essential—that we recognize that there is no equality or near equality or justice under the law in this regard.
I should add that Jeffrey Sterling was convicted on the basis of metadata, which totally undermines the claims of this administration and its defenders, in terms of surveillance, that metadata is not an intrusion. In point of fact, it’s part of a speculative process where the government is able to inject and project into the proceedings its own assumptions and fantasies about what the metadata actually indicates in terms of content that’s not provided.
And I should add that the news conference today featuring Holly Sterling not only is co-sponsored by RootsAction.org and ExposeFacts.org as part of the Institute for Public Accuracy, where I work, but, very significantly, leadership has been taken by Reporters Without Borders. And this is very important because we need—and it is essential—for journalistic organizations to recognize and fight for the rights of whistleblowers, which are totally intertwined with the rights of an independent and free press. And I have to say that the good news, bad news, good news is that Reporters Without Borders is a conspicuous organization by forthrightly challenging this very oppressive treatment of Jeffrey Sterling. We need many other journalistic organizations to step to the fore and begin a show some courage, which has been lacking from them.
Holly Sterling talking:
The strength is just the foundation of Jeffrey and I. You know, we’ve basically endured this our entire relationship. And I have to be our voice, since he hasn’t—he doesn’t have the opportunity to have the voice. But the strength also comes from the support of wonderful people like Norman Solomon, our friends, our family. There are people that truly care about Jeffrey and want to see that justice is done in this case. And so, I’m not going to stop, actually, until I get an answer from the president. Jeffrey is owed that.
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Holly Sterling
wife of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. In May, Jeffrey Sterling was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison on charges that he gave classified information to a New York Times reporter.
Norman Solomon
executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, co-founder of RootsAction.org and coordinator of ExposeFacts.org.
— source democracynow.org