FBI Agent Sentenced To Prison For Hoarding Classified Documents Like A Common Donald Trump
There are two justice systems: this one and the one where you draw Aileen Cannon.
Remember how Donald Trump got indicted for stashing all sorts of classified documents at Mar-A-Lago, that decrepit knockoff of a fourth-rate sultan’s outhouse he calls his home in Florida? And then all the common remoras of the Right started screaming about who can declassify what when and this is just election interference because Democrats are terrified he can easily beat Grandpa Joe Biden in 2024 and really, if a former president wants to keep highly classified nuclear secrets stacked up in the bathroom to read on the shitter instead of old Cosmos or something, that is his right under all the articles and amendments of the Constitution, even the ones that were never passed because Thomas Jefferson set them on fire in the midst of a laudanum-induced psychotic break?
We’re paraphrasing. But not much.
Anyway, the remoras might want to take a look at the case of Kendra Kingsbury, a now-former FBI intelligence analyst in Kansas. On Wednesday Kingsbury was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for violating the same sections of the Espionage Act that Trump was charged with violating, and for similar violations with classified documents. She even had some of them stacked up in her bathroom like a common diaper-clad orange rage ball.
Kingsbury, who worked for the FBI’s Kansas City Division, unlawfully retained about 386 classified documents in total over the course of more than a dozen years at the agency. While prosecutors didn’t allege a motive, a sentencing memo filed this month says Kingsbury’s phone made and received calls with phone numbers associated with the subjects of counterterrorism investigations.
It is unclear from everything we’ve found on this case if the prosecution followed up on that. Was Kingsbury selling information in those documents to said subjects? Some of these were open investigations, according to the piece, so that seems interesting. Oh well.
Kingsbury, who has been on pretrial release while the case has progressed, delivered an emotional statement before Bough announced the sentence that attacked the FBI and portrayed herself as the victim of a toxic work environment. During the hearing, her defense attorney emphasized that Kingsbury had self-disclosed the classified documents in her home and asked for probation.
“I am guilty of being too honest without a safety net,” Kingsbury said. She also said that she was “working in a system that was never going to allow me to succeed.”
This actually sounds a lot like the whiny defenses Trump has been offering up and that his hardcore fans seem to buy: that he’s just a hard-working honest president fighting for the common man, but he’s up against a system (The Swamp/Deep State/George Soros) that is doing everything it can to keep him from succeeding in his quest to Make America Great Again. Because of Marxism or something.
The same day Kingsbury was sentenced, special counsel Jack Smith notified the court of Judge Aileen Cannon that the government has started turning over evidence to Trump’s defense team as part of the discovery process. Among other items, Smith notes there are interviews, plural, of Trump, including the famous one in 2021 with Mark Milley’s ghostwriters, and Trump’s public statements. Does this include public statements he has made since the indictment was unveiled, including that insane town hall on CNN that would have had a normal criminal defendant’s lawyers reaching for either a trunkful of Ativan or a gun? Maybe!
Kingsbury was facing 10 years in prison for two counts of violating section 793(e) of the Espionage Act, and she took a plea deal. Trump is facing 31 counts of unlawfully retaining documents (along with a few more counts of conspiracy and obstruction of justice) and will never, ever, ever take a plea deal, especially if it involves prison time.
But Kingsbury’s case is a giddiness-inducing hint of how many years in the slammer Trump could theoretically get sentenced to if ( when , let’s think positive) he’s found guilty. Not that he will ever spend time in prison. But it’s a pleasant image.
[ Kansas City Star ]
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I absolutely believe the FBI can be as toxic a workplace as any other. I also believe that should have jack-all to do with you not hoarding classified documents. "Special Agent Doe told an off-color joke in my hearing" is not a valid defense for stealing state secrets.
Right?