Former CIA director David Petraeus pleaded guilty in 2015 to giving away classified information and was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay a $100,000 US fine.

Samuel (Sandy) Berger, a U.S. national security adviser to former President Bill Clinton, pleaded guilty in 2005 to unauthorized removal and retention of classified material from the National Archives. Berger was ultimately fined more than $50,000, given a sentence of 100 hours community service and two years' probation, relinquishing his law licence.

In 2021, Elizabeth Jo Shirley was sentenced to eight years in prison for unlawfully retaining documents containing national defence information. Shirley had earlier admitted to unlawfully retaining an NSA document containing information classified at the top secret and secret level relating to national defence that outlines intelligence information regarding a foreign government's military and political issues.