The former FBI agent Sachtleblen has agreed to serve a 43-month sentence. Ex-FBI agent admits to AP leak

The Justice Department says it’s solved one of the most significant leak cases in recent memory: disclosure of an Al Qaeda airliner-bombing plot last year that had reportedly been penetrated by western intelligence services.

Former FBI agent Donald Sachtleben, 55, admitted in court papers Monday that he disclosed classified information about the plot to a journalist. The court filings don’t directly identify the reporter or the news outlet, but they refer to an Associated Press report on the plot.


A federal law enforcement official who asked not to be named also told POLITICO the leaks in question were to the Associated Press.

The court papers indicate that Sachtleben, a bomb expert who was working as a contract technician at the FBI lab at the time of the leak last year, obtained information about the case from FBI lab computers after exchanging text messages with an AP reporter.

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Sachtleben, who retired as an FBI special agent in 2008, has agreed to serve a 43-month sentence on one charge of disclosing national defense information and one charge of retaining classified information at his home. He also agreed to serve 97 months on two child pornography offenses to which he previously pled guilty.

A federal judge in Indiana, where Sachtleben lives, will have to decide if the sentences agreed to by the government and Sachtleben are appropriate. He is presently on pretrial release.

“This unauthorized and unjustifiable disclosure severely jeopardized national security and put lives at risk,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a statement Monday afternoon. “To keep the country safe, the department must enforce the law against such critical and dangerous leaks, while respecting the important role of the press under the department’s media guidelines and any shield law enacted by Congress. I am grateful to the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys’ offices in both Washington, D.C., and Indiana for their excellent and dedicated work on this case.”

The charges are also something of a vindication for Cole, who took heat for getting an order from a federal magistrate for telephone records for more than 20 telephone lines used by AP reporters. Controversy over that seizure and the seizure of email records from Fox News in a separate case led to a major public-relations headache for the administration and to a new policy making it more difficult for prosecutors to obtain such records.

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The AP phone records were sought after interviews of more than 550 people turned up insufficient evidence of who leaked the information about the Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula plot, officials said.

”The phone records were necessary to identifying [Sachtleben] as the suspect,” said a federal law enforcement official. However, the official acknowledged that the FBI already had in its possession evidence linking him to the leak. Investigators in the separate child porn probe had his computer, which contained classified information. But they didn’t search it for national security secrets because that wasn’t relevant to that inquiry, the official said.

Only after the AP phone records pointed to Sachtleben as a suspect in the leak was the computer checked for classified information, setting in motion the leak charges, the official added.

An Associated Press spokesman declined to discuss the development. “We never comment on our sources,” spokesman Paul Colford said.

Sachtleben said in a statement released by his attorneys that he didn’t mean to do damage to U.S. security or put anyone at risk.

“I am deeply sorry for my actions,” he saud. “While I never intended harm to the United States or to any individuals, I do not make excuses for myself. I understand and accept that today’s filings start the process of paying the full consequences of my misconduct, and I know that the justice system I once served so proudly will have its say.”

The charges appear two resolve one of several major leak investigations Attorney General Eric Holder publicly assigned to local U.S. attorneys last year under political pressure from Republicans who said the leaks may have been politically motivated and designed to benefit President Barack Obama.

One probe, handled by U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Ronald Machen, explored leaks to the AP and other news organization about the Al Qaeda bomb plot. White House officials and others said the leaks were extraordinarily serious because they jeopardized U.S. cooperation with allies. Officials also suggested the leaks could have endangered an informant and led to a premature end to his infiltration of Al Qaeda.

The court papers in Sachtleben’s case don’t describe precisely what damage his leak caused, nor do they make any reference to an informant or double agent being endangered. However, a U.S. official said prosecutors haven’t put all the details in the public documents in order to avoid compounding the damage.

Machen did say in a statement that the former FBI agent’s actions “threatened a sensitive intelligence operation” and amounted to an “egregious betrayal of our national security.”

Several White House officials were interviewed by investigators, including then-Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan, who has since become Central Intelligence Agency director. After the initial leak, he held a background telephone briefing with TV terrorism commentators, telling them the U.S. had “inside control” of the operation and therefore knew it wouldn’t pose a direct threat.

Brennan said his lawyers were told he was not a focus of the DOJ investigation.

A law enforcement official indicated that the case has not been officially closed but the charges against Sachtleben are the only ones expected.

Another inquiry, handled by the U.S. Attorney in Maryland, is believed to be exploring leaks about U.S. intelligence agencies use of the so-called “Stuxnet” computer virus to interfere with Iranian nuclear programs. No charges have yet been filed in that case.

Hadas Gold contributed to this report.