Trump may PARDON sailor jailed in 'very unfair' case for photographing nuclear sub's classified areas – after his leniency plea cited Hillary Clinton's non-prosecution

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A former sailor sentenced to one year in jail for mishandling classified information is pleading to President Donald Trump to pardon him for his crime – and Trump is listening.

Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity asked the president about 'the power of the pardon,' and mentioned the case of Kristian Saucier of Arlington, Vermont. Saucier was jailed in August for taking six photos of classified areas inside a nuclear attack submarine.

'Would that be something early on, you would consider?' Hannity asked.

'I'm actually looking at it right now,' Trump replied. 'I think it's very unfair in light of what's happened with other people.'

President Donald Trump said in a Fox News Channel interview broadcast Thursday night that he's considering a clemency petition from a sailor jailed for taking photos of a nuclear submarine's classified area

Kristian Saucier of Arlington, Vermont, was sentenced to a year in prison for taking the pictures; his lawyers argued that it was similar to how Hillary Clinton used a private server to send classified emails – but she got off scot-free

Those 'other people' include most prominently Hillary Clinton, his Democratic election foe who was never prosecuted for allegedly mishandling classified information on a far larger scale.

Her unsecured homebrew email server was found to contain more than 1,000 classified documents.

As he campaigned for the White House, Trump called her 'guilty as hell.'

Saucier's lawyers cited the Clinton case in a plea for leniency, saying the government's lack of interest in bringing her to justice constituted a double standard for government employees at different levels in the pecking order.

Clinton was the U.S. secretary of state when she was sending and receiving emails that contained classified information. 

Trump seemed on Thursday night to have already considered the parallels.

Saucier was serving on board the USS Alexandria, right, when he took the images

Trump's interview with Fox's Sean Hannity also included comments about the ISIS terror army,  Supreme Court nominations, and the 'disgusting' Madonna

'How can you have somebody else get away with such a tremendous amount,' he asked, 'and then this person who takes a picture of his desk on an old submarine –.' 

'Look,' the president declared. 'If China or Russia wanted information on that submarine, they've had it for many years. That I can tell you.'

Trump said he was 'looking at a few' such cases.

In addition to 1 year in jail, Saucier was ordered to serve six months of home confinement with electronic monitoring, during a three-year period of supervised release.

He pleaded guilty in May 2016 to unauthorized 'detention' of defense information and had faced five to six years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.

Saucier was a 22-year-old sailor when he took photos of classified areas in the sub; he said he wanted to show them to his kids one day

Saucier felt his punishment was heavy-handed due to how he felt Hillary Clinton was treated over her use of a private email server that moved a large number of classified files without encryption or other cyber security

He also did not cooperate with the investigation into his misconduct – destroying a laptop and an SD card following an interview with the FBI. 

Saucier took advantage of the changing of the guard in the White House, sending an appeal directly to Trump two weeks ago.

'While my conduct in taking the six photos was admittedly wrong and without excuse, the Department of Justice's heavy-handed response to my misconduct was certainly a product of the scrutiny brought about by a fervent political climate and not by the gravity of my misconduct,' he wrote.

'Indeed, if not for the high level of the Clinton misconduct and the lengthy presidential campaign process, there can be no doubt that my far less egregious acts of taking six photos of my work station would have otherwise been received with a significantly lower form of punishment.'

Saucier’s attorney Jeffrey Addicott told the Navy Times that he hopes Trump will be sympathetic to his client's case.

Saucier was sentenced to one year in prison; his lawyers wanted probation 

'The reason this case cries out for clemency and pardon is just the gross injustice,' Addicott said. 'This is a matter of justice and justice isn’t just about whether you are guilty or not – he’s admitted that. It's about the punishment as well.'

Saucier admitted to taking six photos of classified areas inside the USS Alexandria in 2009 when it was in Groton, Connecticut and he was a 22-year-old machinist mate on the submarine. 

The photos showed the nuclear reactor compartment, the auxiliary steam propulsion panel and the maneuvering compartment, prosecutors said.

The sailor's attorneys tried working the Clinton angle, arguing that the Democratic presidential nominee had been 'engaging in acts similar to Mr. Saucier' with information of much higher classification, according to US News. 

The filing said it would be 'unjust and unfair for Mr. Saucier to receive any sentence other than probation,' given other people's outcomes.

Saucier took the photos knowing they were classified, but did so only to be able to show his family and future children what he did while he was in the Navy, his lawyers said.

He denied sharing the photos with any unauthorized person.

'It was a foolish mistake by a very young man,' his lawyer, Greg Rinckey, said after the sentencing. 'It's a very sad case because Kristian Saucier is a fine young man. We don't believe this was really his true character.'

Saucier reported to prison in October.

The pictures in Saucier's case showed the USS Alexandria's nuclear reactor compartment, auxiliary steam propulsion panel and the maneuvering compartment

Saucier wrote: 'While my conduct in taking the six photos was admittedly wrong and without excuse, the Department of Justice's heavy-handed response to my misconduct was certainly a product of the scrutiny brought about by a fervent political climate'

Calling for a significant sentence, prosecutors said: 'During the course of the investigation, at no time did the defendant admit or take responsibility for his conduct and did not truthfully disclose the salient facts, or engage in a meaningful debriefing of his conduct.'

According to court documents: 'Saucier methodically documented the entire propulsion system of the nuclear submarine, including the design of its nuclear compartment and its nuclear reactor.'

Prosecutors wrote that he was 'grasping at highly imaginative and speculative straws in trying to further draw a comparison to the matter of Secretary Hillary Clinton based on virtually no understanding and knowledge of the facts involved, the information at issue, not to mention any issues of intent and knowledge.' 

Rinckey said after sentencing that 'it could be argued here that depending on what your name is, that's the type of justice you get in the United States.'

A former sailor who worked with Saucier, Gene Pitcher, told Politico, 'I just don’t think it’s fair. In reality, what [Clinton] did is so much worse than what Kris did. ... I think it’s just a blatant double standard.'

He added that he had seen other sailors get in trouble for taking photos, but that they usually just lost pay or rank, and Saucier is the only one he's seen prosecuted. 

'Felony charges appear to be reserved for people of the lowest ranks. Everyone else who does it either doesn’t get charged or gets charged with a misdemeanor,' Edward MacMahon, a Virginia defense attorney not involved in the Saucier case, told Politico.