A former FBI analyst has been sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of illegally retaining classified documents in a case that bears similarities to the legal battle faced by former president Donald Trump.
Kendra Kingsbury, 50, worked as an analyst for the FBI for 12 years and held top secret security clearance when she was accused of taking classified documents out of the secure workspace and storing them in her Kansas City home.
Kingsbury pleaded guilty to two counts of willful retention of classified documents. Of the 37 counts that Mr Trump has been indicted on, 31 relate to willful retention of classified documents.
The Kingsbury case saw her admit to retaining documents pertaining to terrorism. According to her indictment: “The documents include information about al Qaeda members on the African continent, including a suspected associate of Usama bin Laden. In addition, there are documents regarding the activities of emerging terrorists and their efforts to establish themselves in support of al Qaeda in Africa.”
Whereas Mr Trump is accused of retaining documents at Mar-a-Lago that contain “information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”
Unlike Kingsbury, Mr Trump has entered a ‘not guilty’ plea to the charges and has insisted that he is being charged under the Espionage Act for taking his “own” documents, also suggesting that “just about every other president has done” the same thing (this is not the case).
As he was handing out Kingsbury’s sentence, U.S. District Judge Stephen Bough criticised her over the handling of the classfied information.
“I cannot fathom why you would jeopardise our nation by leaving these documents in your bathtub,” he said, per a tweet from Daily Beast reporter Jose Pagliery.
