WASHINGTON (AP) – A former FBI lawyer was sentenced to parole on Friday for altering an email the Justice Department relied on to monitor an aide to President Donald Trump during the investigation in Russia.
Kevin Clinesmith apologized for tampering with the e-mail about Carter Page’s relationship with the CIA, saying he was “really ashamed” of an action he said had “forever changed the course of my life”.
“I swear to you that I will never again allow myself to show such a bad judgment,” Clinesmith told US District Judge James Boasberg at a sentencing hearing held remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The sentence is likely to disappoint Trump supporters, who have long claimed that the Russian investigation was a witch hunt riddled with misconduct, particularly because it involved Page and the government’s watch over him. Russia’s investigation resulted in criminal charges against six Trump associates, but did not find enough evidence that Trump’s campaign associates had illegally coordinated with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of several months, but the judge said he did not think such a punishment was necessary in part because of Clinesmith’s evident remorse and the way he had previously been “threatened, defamed and abused on a national scale. . “
“This conduct is the only stain on the defendant’s character that I have been able to discern,” said Boasberg in imposing a year of probation.
Although Trump has long protested the FBI investigation into the ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, and suggested that the officials involved in it had broken the law and deserved imprisonment, Clinesmith is so far the only current or former employee to have been accused of any wrongdoing.
The surveillance enforcement process that Clinesmith was part of, however, was marred by major problems, with a general report by the Justice Department inspector identifying major errors and omissions in the four warrant requests submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Watch Court. Even so, this aspect of Russia’s investigation was a small part of a much broader investigation.
The indictment against Clinesmith was brought by John Durham, the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, who was instructed in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate possible misconduct during the investigation in Russia by U.S. intelligence and police agencies. Last fall, Barr appointed Durham as a special lawyer as a way to ensure the continuity of his investigation during the Biden government. The current status of the Durham investigation was unclear, although Barr said the focus of the investigation is now centered on the FBI and not the CIA.
Clinesmith pleaded guilty in September to altering a 2017 e-mail he had received from the CIA to say that Page “was not a source” for the agency, although the original message indicated that it was. As a result, when the Justice Department asked the secret surveillance court for the fourth and final warrant to spy on Page’s communications on suspicion that he was an agent in Russia, it did not disclose Page’s relationship with the CIA.
Page had been approved several years earlier as an “operational contact” for the CIA, a term for people who provide information to the agency they gather but are not tasked with carrying out tasks.
Information about Page’s relationship would have been important for disclosure to the court, as it could provide a legitimate and nefarious explanation for any contact that Page had had with Russian intelligence officials. Page was not charged with any crime as part of the Russian investigation.
By altering the email to say that Page was not a source, Clinesmith “completely changed the meaning of the document,” prosecutor Anthony Scarpelli said on Friday.
“The act of changing the email to change its meaning may seem simple and a momentary lapse in judgment on the part of the defendant,” said Scarpelli. “But the resulting damage is immeasurable.”
After revelations about significant problems with surveillance applications, the FBI and the Justice Department announced dozens of corrective actions aimed at improving the accuracy of the warrant requests it sends during espionage and terrorism investigations.
Page himself spoke at the sentencing hearing, saying he had been harassed, threatened and lost friends as a result of the publicity surrounding the surveillance. He said that although his own life had been “severely affected”, he did not want to see Clinesmith or his family suffer.
Clinesmith and his lawyer, Justin Shur, maintained that they did not know that he was altering the email in a way that made it fake and honestly believed, based on the information he received, that Page was not a direct source of the CIA, but in instead of a sub-source. Prosecutors say the explanation made no sense and, in any case, was not a justification for changing the email.
Boasberg, who is also the presiding judge of the surveillance court, said that while frankness with the court was essential, he did not believe that Clinesmith altered the email for his own benefit.
He also said the errors in the warrant requests were so numerous that it was possible that the room in which Clinesmith was involved had been approved, even if the information presented to the court was complete and Page’s relationship with the CIA duly disclosed.
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