(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In a case many news outlets compared to the Donald Trump classified documents scandal, a former FBI analyst was sentenced to nearly four years imprisonment Wednesday for storing classified documents in her home—including her bathroom.
The former analyst pleaded guilty last October to two counts of violating the Espionage Act. The charges stem from her unlawfully taking about 386 classified documents to her home in Dodge City, Kansas.
“Kingsbury put national security at risk by retaining classified information in her home that would have, if in the wrong hands, revealed some of the government’s most important and secretive methods of collecting essential national security intelligence,” the Justice Department stated after Kingsbury was sentenced.
Before her sentencing, Kingsbury reportedly delivered an emotional statement that attacked the FBI and portrayed herself as the victim of a toxic work environment.
“I am guilty of being too honest without a safety net,” Kingsbury said, referring to the fact that she self-disclosed the classified documents in her home and asked for probation.
The FBI argued that Kingsbury only self-disclosed her possession of classified documents because she believed she was under FBI surveillance, according to the Kansas City Star. However, an FBI agent testified that Kingsbury wasn’t actually under FBI surveillance at the time.
Media outlets were quick to compare Kingsbury’s case to Trump’s.
“While Trump and his supporters have cast the case against him as a political witch hunt, Kingsbury’s case and others underscore how aggressively federal prosecutors take security issues related to classification and information security,” the Star reported.
The New York Times made a similar statement, reporting Wednesday that “her case and punishment, and others like it involving violations of the Espionage Act, reflect how seriously the government takes such charges and offers a glimpse of how aggressively the Justice Department might pursue its case against Mr. Trump.”
The outlets comparing the two cases didn’t mention the main defense being levied by Trump supporters—that, unlike the former FBI analyst, Trump was the President of the United States and therefore had authority to take any U.S. government document he pleased.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
