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IPFS News Link • Trump Administration

Trump pardons Kristian Saucier, former sailor jailed for submarine pictures

• www.washingtonexaminer.com, by Steven Nelson

Saucier was sentenced to a year in prison during the 2016 campaign for taking pictures inside a nuclear submarine. Trump invoked his case repeatedly on the campaign trail, saying he was "ruined" for doing "nothing" compared to Hillary Clinton.

Still, Trump allowed Saucier to serve his full prison sentence. He was released in September and returned to the Vermont home he shares with his wife Sadie and their two-year-old daughter.

Saucier, now 31, was 22 years old when he took the cellphone photos in 2009. He pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized retention of national defense information and his attorneys unsuccessfully requested the "Clinton deal," meaning little if any punishment.

The six photos found on a cellphone Saucier discarded were deemed "confidential," the lowest level of classification, even though some depicted the vessel's nuclear reactor. Clinton, by contrast, sent and received highly classified information on a private email server. In pleading guilty, Saucier admitted destroying evidence after being questioned.