The defendant is accused of illegally taking hundreds of classified documents containing secrets about US counterterrorism investigations and intelligence efforts – and keeping them in his home.
But it’s not former President Donald Trump.
For the past two years, a former intelligence analyst with the Kansas City Division of the FBI has been at the center of a federal criminal case involving alleged hoarding of classified documents. A federal grand jury indicted the analyst, Dodge City resident Kendra Kingsbury, in May 2021, charging her with two counts of violating 18 USC § 793(e) — the same immigration law charge. spying that Trump faces.
Kingsbury, whose case is in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, is expected to be sentenced next week in Kansas City after pleading guilty to both counts in October. She will potentially be the first defendant convicted of violating the law against willfully withholding national defense information since Trump was indicted.
Kingsbury’s indictment offers a window into how seriously the Justice Department takes the mishandling of classified information and how aggressively federal prosecutors pursue those who illegally retain sensitive documents. As Trump prepares for his first court appearance on Tuesday, the Kansas City case highlights the legal issues facing the former president.
“Her situation has been publicized locally and nationally – and has been mentioned alongside high-profile political figures whose conduct appears eerily analogous to that of Ms. Kingsbury,” wrote Marc Ermine, a deputy federal public defender who represents Kingsbury, in a sentencing note filed in court on Monday. .
One of the prosecutors in the Kingsbury case was also involved in the Trump investigation. David Raskin, a Kansas City-based national security prosecutor, has joined the Justice Department team investigating Trump, The Washington Post reported last fall.
Kingsbury’s indictment alleged that between 2004 and 2017, she gained access to sensitive government documents in a secure area of the FBI office in Kansas City, as well as through secure government computer systems. The indictment specifically accused Kingsbury of keeping 20 documents, mostly intelligence memos and internal correspondence.
The indictment did not describe a motive, but a sentencing note filed by prosecutors on Monday says Kingsbury’s phone made and received calls with phone numbers associated with the subjects of terrorism investigations. The memo says investigators were unable to determine why Kingsbury contacted the individuals or why they called her.
A prosecutor said in court last year that Kingsbury, who was 48 at the time of the indictment and had worked as an FBI intelligence analyst for more than 12 years, illegally kept about 386 classified documents at the total. When the indictment was unsealed, the Justice Department described Kingsbury’s crimes as a serious betrayal of trust that jeopardized national security.
“Kingsbury allegedly violated the trust of our nation by stealing and keeping classified documents in their home for years,” Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement to the time.
“Insider threats pose a significant danger to our national security, and we will continue to work tirelessly to identify, prosecute and prosecute individuals who pose such a threat.”
Kingsbury pleaded guilty to both counts of the Espionage Act on October 13, 2022, without a formal plea agreement. Kingsbury’s defense attorney had offered that she plead guilty to one of the counts in exchange for the other count being dismissed and a probation sentence being considered. The Justice Department rejected the offer, prosecutor Patrick Edwards said during the hearing, according to a court transcript.
“I can say that the DOJ and the federal government take document security VERY seriously,” Stephen McAllister, who was the US District Attorney for Kansas under Trump, said in a text message.
Prosecutors are asking for a prison sentence of 57 months (4.75 years) and three years of probation. Her defense team is seeking probation, noting that she is caring for her 75-year-old mother and has a son who will soon be graduating from high school.
Kingsbury’s sentencing is scheduled for June 21 before U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Bough. She is represented by the Federal Public Defender.
“We hope the Court will consider the facts of Ms Kingsbury’s case – and her as an individual – in determining the appropriate outcome for her,” Ermine, Kingsbury’s lead solicitor, said in a statement. communicated.
To be sure, there are important differences between the Kingsbury and Trump cases. While both are accused of keeping hundreds of classified documents in their homes, Trump’s case is in some ways even more serious as he is also charged with obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Some of the classified documents at issue in the Trump case are also more secret.
Prosecutors said Kingsbury kept secret documents — on hard drives, CDs and other formats — outlining intelligence sources and methods related to the US government’s efforts to defend against counterterrorism, counterterrorism, and counterterrorism. – espionage and cyber threats. The documents included information about open FBI investigations.
Kingsbury also allegedly kept documents containing information on al-Qaeda members in Africa, including a suspected associate of Osama bin Laden. Other documents focused on the activities of emerging terrorists and their efforts to establish themselves in support of al-Qaeda in Africa.
While all of the documents Kingsbury is responsible for taking have been classified at the Secret level, Trump is accused of having Top Secret documents. The indictment alleges that Trump had documents related to nuclear weapons and military planning.
Trump’s status as a former president — and as the current Republican frontrunner for office — also underscores the obvious differences between his case and Kingsbury’s. Trump has presented the investigations into him as a witch hunt. Many Republicans have downplayed the indictment as politically motivated, even though Biden-appointed Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to insulate the investigation from alleged political bias. .
Will Scharf, a former 2020-2022 U.S. assistant attorney who is running for Missouri attorney general as a Republican, said the Justice Department has a longstanding policy against bringing in new cases or commissioning “overt investigative acts” against political figures in an election to avoid the appearance of politics in a prosecution.
However, state-level Republican nominating contests don’t begin until 2024, and the presidential election itself is a year and a half away. The Justice Department was also investigating Trump before he announced his candidacy in November.
“Bringing a case like this against a top presidential candidate smacks of politics and will decimate public confidence in our law enforcement system,” Scharf said in a statement, echoing the views of many. republicans.
But Kingsbury’s case and others strongly suggest that not indicting Trump would have been an extraordinary move by prosecutors given the facts alleged.
Earlier this month, former Air Force intelligence officer Robert L. Birchum was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $25,000 for illegally retaining classified documents. Birchum, of Tampa, Florida, took more than 300 classified files or documents, including 30 Top Secret items, and kept them in his home, his officer’s quarters overseas, and in a storage capsule in his driveway. .
In 2021, former US Air Force contractor Izaak Vincent Kemp pleaded guilty to taking 112 classified documents from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio to his home. He was sentenced to one year in prison.
Kingsbury had received training in handling classified documents, according to the indictment, and had been told that the unauthorized disclosure of secret information could endanger national security. It’s unclear whether Trump as president received formal document security training, but the Justice Department only sought an impeachment after the federal government repeatedly asked Trump to return the documents and, according to prosecutors, the former president sought to protect them from disclosure.
Barry Grissom, who was the U.S. District Attorney for Kansas in the Justice Department under former President Barack Obama, echoed McAllister in an interview, saying the DOJ takes classified documents very seriously.
Grissom said that when he became the state’s top federal prosecutor, he was brought into a sensitive compartmented information center – SCIF – where classified information is viewed and told that the information in the room could not not be shared.
“You can’t divulge this to anyone,” Grissom said, recalling what he was told. “Not now – not ever.”