Drone whistleblower Daniel Hale was released from prison in February after spending 33 months in some of the harshest confinement conditions ever imposed on a person for disclosing classified information to the press.
Hale remains in federal custody but is living in home confinement until July.
Though President Donald Trump’s Justice Department indicted Hale, his case became the first major Espionage Act conviction secured by prosecutors under President Joe Biden.
In an opinion article for Al Jazeera English, Hale marked his freedom by weighing in on the decision by Special Counsel Robert Hur to not recommend charges against Biden for mishandling classified information.
Hale noted the similarities between what he did and what Hur said Biden did and powerfully illustrated the disparate treatment that he survived.
Both Biden and Hale kept classified information “outside of a secure facility” at their homes and offices. Both spoke to a reporter about the information. Both expressed concerns about official United States policy, with Biden objecting to the 2009 “surge” in Afghanistan and Hale objecting to the “consequences” of prolonging the war.
“Biden [was] let off the hook because he did not mean any harm,” Hale wrote. “In contrast, the government’s pre-trial motions in my case argued that I not be allowed to present evidence of what it called my ‘good motives.’”
“Afraid my motives might make me appear too sympathetic to a jury, I—like every other whistleblower before me—was rendered effectively defenseless because of a legal technicality in the way the law is written. Given no other choice, I was forced to plead out to avert a costly, unwinnable trial,” Hale recalled.
Hellbound and Down 