Former CIA director David Petraeus is expected to reach a plea deal over giving classified information to a mistress.
Petraeus, a decorated war veteran and CIA head for roughly a year, will has entered into an agreement federal prosecutors to plead guilty to one charge of “unauthorized removal of retention of classified material,” according to the New York Times.
Petraeus has already signed the agreement, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi said Tuesday.
The former general resigned in November 2012 after being CIA director for a little more than one year. Before that, he spent 37 years in the U.S. Army, including leading U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He resigned when the media learned he was having an affair with Paula Broadwell, a former Army officer who wrote a biography of him.
The plea deal allows Petraeus to avoid a public trial, one that would have undoubtedly gotten messy and personal. He is still married to his wife, Holly Petraeus.
“Three documents — a criminal information, a plea agreement and a statement of facts — were filed today in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina’s Charlotte Division in the case of United States v. David Howell Petraeus. The criminal information charges the defendant with one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. … The plea agreement and corresponding statement of facts, both signed by the defendant, indicate that he will plead guilty to the one-count criminal Information,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
