Thomas Drake

speaker

874 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 11 Sep

Thomas Drake’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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So just imagine...

And it became very public.

You can go back, look what the DOJ said, what the FBI said and others.

I was considered an enemy of the state.

They clearly had flagged and tagged me as the ringleader and they were going to punish me and punish me good.

And here I am facing the prospect that pretty much for the rest of my natural life, I could end up in prison.

And it was quite a battle facing 35 years in prison to face it down over a 14-month period.

And literally on the eve of trial, I was able to plead out on my terms.

They dropped all the 10 counts, and I pled out to a minor misdemeanor.

For what?

For exceeding authorized use of a government computer under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act involving no classified information at all.

Yes.

I mean, I went through a probation period, one year probation, 240 hours of community service.

Interestingly enough, that community service involved, the judge didn't know it at the time.

He just sent me to the Army Community Services Director out of Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland.

And I ended up interviewing about three and a half dozen veterans from World War II to the present day, including Ellsberg, by the way.

Extraordinary interviews with military veterans, up to and including Afghanistan, Iraq, Battle of the Bulge, Vietnam, Korea, Suez Canal period.

We were sending troops because we thought World War III was going to break out then, possibly.

Just extraordinary.

Persian Gulf.

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