Bill Clinton Pardoned CIA Director For Private Server Use

On Friday August 20, 1999, then-director of the CIA George Tenet announced he had suspended the security clearance of previous director John M. Deutch for storing classified information on a private server at his home. On January 20, 2001, as one of his last acts as president, Bill Clinton granted Deutch a presidential pardon, sparing him the prospect of a criminal conviction.

“The pardon of Mr. Deutch spares the former spy director any criminal charges for mishandling secret information on his home computer. Mr. Deutch, who resigned in 1996, has already had his security clearance stripped,” The New York Times reported at the time. “He had been considering a deal with the Justice Department in which he would plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of keeping classified data on home computers.”

The Washington Post reported just days later that Deutch had actually agreed to plead guilty to the misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information, before he was saved by Clinton’s pardon.

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