Victory Against the Obama DOJ in Two Espionage Cases

The invaluable Glenn Greenwald writes that the Obama DOJ suffered serious blows to two of their espionage prosecutions; one against former NSA executive Thomas Drake (see details about his prosecution) and the other a subpoena  to compel New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal his confidential source for his book State of War. 

Most of the charges against Drake, who originally faced up to 35 years in prison for leaking classified information, were dropped on June 9th, which left Drake to plead guilty to one misdemeanor of exceeding his authorized use of a government computer.  As Greenwald writes, the U.S. District Judge, Richard Bennett, blasted the DOJ for their sloppy and drawn-out prosecution and refused to acquiesce to the DOJ's demand that the court fine Drake for $50,000.  Judge Bennett acknowledged that the DOJ already destroyed Drake's life through their prosecution, writing:

I think the average American would take great caution to say, okay, let me get this straight, my home is searched, and three years later I' finally indicted, and then a year after that the government drops the whole case.  That's four years of hell that a citizen goes through.[emphasis mine].    

Spot on.  When it comes to federal prosecutions, it rarely matters if the person is innocent or not; paying the legal fees necessary to fight a federal prosecution, everyone except for the very wealthy find their finances and life savings ruined.

In the case of James Risen, the U.S. district court narrowed the subpoena to only verify the accuracy of what Risen wrote in his book. 

It is nice to see that sometimes you can beat the government.