Pentagon Drops Claim Against Navy SEAL That He Spilled Bin Laden Secrets

Four years after a former Navy SEAL was threatened with prison for writing about the guy Osama bin Laden raid, the Pentagon has dropped its claim that Matt Bissonnette revealed secrets harmful to national security.

Bissonnette, who wrote No Easy Day under the pen name “Mark Owen,” will have to forfeit more than $6.7 million in book earnings for writing the tell-all, first-person story of the 2011 mission without the Pentagon’s pre-publication review—a violation of military nondisclosure agreements, according to a settlement finalized Friday. He’ll also have to pay the U.S. government back $1.3 million for his legal fees, which he’d paid out of his book earnings.

“After the initial accusations of me leaking all that classified stuff…they found nothing,” Bissonnette told The Daily Beast. “They were just upset with me and wanted to get me one way or another. For four years, they looked into every little thing. Now…one signature and it all goes away,” he said.

Read More- The Daily Beast

Image courtesy of TECH. SGT. BRIAN SNYDE/UNITED STATES NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE