Jeffrey Sterling recently stood before a judge as his sentence was read. The former CIA officer, the judge declared, would spend 42 months – that’s three and half years – behind bars. The feds had convicted Sterling on nine felony charges, including seven counts of espionage.
He didn’t sell secrets to the Russians. He didn’t trade intelligence for personal gain. He made no attempt to disrupt the American way of life.
What did he do, then?
He reported to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the CIA had botched an operation to feed false information about nuclear technology to Iran – and may have actually helped Iran’s enrichment program instead.
Largely based on this, the government accused Sterling of leaking details about the program to journalist James Risen, who wrote about it in his book State of War.
Even worse, the feds claimed that Sterling, who is black, did it out of resentment over a failed racial discrimination lawsuit against the agency – in effect using Sterling’s willingness to stand up for his rights against him.
There was no actual proof, though, that Sterling was Risen’s source. The only evidence the prosecution had against Sterling was metadata that showed he had spoken to Risen by phone.