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Dead Drop: December 9

Dead Drop: December 9

PARDON ME? Apparently, a lot of people are looking for “get out of jail free” cards.  There was a flurry of stories over the past week of folks courting public opinion to upend past and potential judicial proceedings.  For example, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, facing a potential general court martial for abandoning his post in Afghanistan (and who was held by the Taliban for five years before being swapped for five Taliban commanders imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay) , has reportedly asked President Obama for a pardon. No doubt he would like one before January 20th since Donald Trump once called him “a no-good traitor who should have been executed.” Then there is former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling who is doing 3.5 years in the federal slammer for leaking classified information to a reporter.  According to AP, Sterling is “now pinning his hopes for an early release on a federal appeals court, which will soon consider whether to reverse his convictions.” And then there is NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who told Yahoo news anchor Katie Couric in a face-to-face interview in Moscow that he is not counting on a pardon by President Obama.  In his defense, he asserted that former CIA Director David Petraeus had disclosed “far more highly classified information than I ever did.”  Of course, Petraeus’ disclosure was in the form of written notes in little black books shared with his biographer and never exposed to the public – and Snowden’s came in the form of boatloads of highly classified information published on the Internet – but facts are stubborn things.

SECARMY OF ONE: The Washington Post reported Thursday that a leading candidate for Secretary of the Army is retired Colonel James Hickey. Hickey personally led the mission in Iraq that captured Saddam Hussein.  Since hanging up his uniform, he has been on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee, among other things, where he captured the admiration of Senator John McCain, who called him "one of the most outstanding officers I've ever had the opportunity of dealing with." Appointing Hickey might be a savvy move – not only putting in office someone who can command respect of the troops but also a person who can get along well with (the sometimes irascible) McCain.

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