Relevant statute

Instapundit:


I BELIEVE THAT THIS IS THE RELEVANT STATUTE, 18 U.S.C. 793 (f), governing Berger's behavior:

Sec. 793. - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

(f)

Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,

(1)

through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or

(2)

having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer -


Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(Via reader David Radulski.) I'm no expert in this area of the law (I teach National Security Law, but don't spend much time on these sorts of questions), but this would seem to rule out "inadvertence" as a defense. The legalities of this are the least important part from my perspective -- I'm far more concerned with what the Hell he was thinking -- but this may be useful....

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