A federal judge on Friday (Jan. 29) sentenced former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith to 12 months of parole (probation). He was accused of tampering with an email from the CIA. The email became a key document for the FBI to obtain permission to wiretap Paige. It was also one of several major mistakes in the FBI’s application to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg called Klinginsmith’s forgery a desire to take an “improper (procedural) shortcut. The judge agreed with the defense that the former FBI lawyer did not intend to lie when he rewrote “was an informant” to “was not an informant” in an email from the CIA.
The CIA email clearly stated that Page was a CIA informant who provided information to the CIA.
Boasberg is one of the judges on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approved the application to spy on Page. He said Klinginsmith’s forged documents damaged the court’s reputation. The judge said he had no reason to disagree with the conclusions of a report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General that found Klinneth Smith’s actions were not motivated by bias against President Trump.
The judge also ordered Clinneth Smith to do 400 hours of community service.
For its part, the prosecutor’s office argued for a prison sentence for Clinesmith and rejected claims that the defendant did not intend to lie when he doctored the emails. Prosecutors argued that the forgery was “akin to identity theft” because by altering the information, Clinesmith was effectively impersonating a CIA contact. Prosecutor Anthony Scarpelli told the judge that “the resulting harm is incalculable.”
In his remarks to the court, Clinesmith described the forged e-mail as a “significant error in judgment” and a search for “unnecessary shortcuts.
“I have harmed a system that I cherish and admire,” Clinesmith said.
Defense attorneys described Clinesmith’s misconduct as a “disorderly conduct” in his honorable Life.
The judge noted that he had received about 50 letters attesting to Clinesmith’s character. Boasberg also noted that he could not ignore the harm already suffered by Clinesmith, including the possibility of having lost his government job and losing his law license. The judge noted that because of his improper surveillance of Trump campaign aides, Clinesmith was catapulted from an obscure lawyer to the center of a nationally visible “hurricane.
In his remarks at the sentencing hearing, Page described the harm he suffered as a result of the surveillance and related government leaks. He said one of his close friends cut off all contact with him, and the media portrayed him as a Russian agent. Page sought clemency for him and did not ask for a term of imprisonment for Crismis.
In arguing for a prison sentence, prosecutor Scarpelli cited the cases of former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and attorney Alex van der Zwaan. Both are part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s “Russiagate” investigation. Both men were sentenced to prison terms on the same charges. Scarpelli noted that Chris Smith’s crimes were more serious than Papadopoulos’.
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