James "Hoss" Cartwright, the retired four-star Marine general and onetime vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, A is under investigation for allegedly leaking information about a U.S. covert cyberattack, sources told NBC News.
Cartwright is reportedly under investigation for allegedly leaking information about a U.S. virus attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, the sources said. However, Cartwright has not been formerly charged with any unlawful activity and his lawyer, Greg Craig, said Friday that "any suggestion that he could have betrayed the country he loves is preposterous."
According to reports, Cartwright is being investigated after he was interviewed by New York Times reporters about ongoing cyberattacks against Iran, which were given the code name "Olympic Games."
The Times report describes meetings in the White House Situation Room and the way the virus was introduced to an Iranian nuclear facility. Cartwright ran the operation under President George Bush and Obama.
The Times article mentions Cartwright twice, saying that he "had established a small cyberoperation inside the United States Strategic Command," and calling him a crucial player in the Olympic Games project. The story also gave new details about how the bug had been developed by the United States, working with Israel.
Two sources told NBC that prosecutors were able to identify Cartwright as a suspected leaker without resorting to a subpoena of reporters' phone records.
After that story was published, Attorney General Eric Holder ordered an investigation into the leak. And this past January, The Washington Post reported that the FBI and prosecutors had spoken to "several current and former senior government officials in connection with the disclosures, sometimes confronting them with evidence of contact with journalists, according to people familiar with the probe."
