The US Capitol is seen in Washington early Tuesday as US Capitol Police watch the perimeter. Democrats are launching their investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. The police officers who are testifying Tuesday endured some of the worst of the brutality. Photo: VCG

A former intelligence analyst was sentenced Tuesday to 45 months in prison for leaking secrets about the US military's drone attacks that were the basis of a powerful 2015 news expose.

Daniel Everette Hale, 33, worked as an Air Force intelligence officer developing targets for drone strikes in Afghanistan in 2011-22, an experience that he said left him emotionally scarred.

After leaving military service, in 2014 he worked for a defense contractor for eight months which gave him access to top secret documents detailing the US government's secretive drone assassinations in Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia.

He fed the documents to The Intercept news outlet, which used them for an eight-part series that shook the administration of president Barack Obama, raising broader questions about the increase in drone strikes and the killing of innocent non-combatants.

The sentence was far below the potential 50 years Hale faced on five charges. 

In a case delayed by issues of classified information and by the COVID-19 pandemic, he unilaterally submitted a guilty plea to a single charge of "retaining and transmitting national defense information."

Citing his longstanding "serious underlying mental health conditions" relating to a difficult childhood, Hale asked for a sentence of 12-18 months.

His lawyers argued in a court submission that his act of leaking the documents was not intended to harm the United States, but instead was "a crime of conscience."

"He wanted to assuage his guilt and inform his fellow citizens in hopes of making America live up to its aspirations," it said.