Trump and a former FBI analyst were charged with similar crimes. The FBI analyst just got nearly 4 years in prison.
A former FBI analyst was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for keeping classified documents at her home.
She had unlawfully kept about 386 classified documents, according to the Justice Department.
About 300 documents with classification markings were taken from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
A former FBI analyst was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for violating the Espionage Act by keeping classified documents at her personal residence, echoing Donald Trump's federal indictment on charges that he stored highly sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago home.
The former analyst, Kendra Kingsbury, worked for the Kanas City Division of the FBI from 2004 to 2017, giving her top secret security clearance and access to "national defense and classified information," the Justice Department wrote in a Wednesday press release.
In her training, Kingsbury was warned that classified information could only be kept in an "approved facility and container," the DOJ wrote. However, the former analyst admitted that she repeatedly took classified documents, including national defense-related information to her home in, at the time, North Kansas City, Missouri.
According to the DOJ, Kingsbury illegally took about 386 classified documents. Some of the documents were classified "at the SECRET level," the Justice Department said.
"These documents described intelligence sources and methods related to U.S. government efforts to collect intelligence on terrorist groups," the DOJ wrote in the press release. " The documents included information about al Qaeda members on the African continent, including a suspected associate of Usama bin Laden. In addition, there were documents regarding the activities of emerging terrorists and their efforts to establish themselves in support of al Qaeda in Africa."
The case against Kingsbury runs eerily similar to Trump's indictment, which includes 37 charges related to his handling of classified records — 31 of which are over alleged violations of the Espionage Act for "willful retention of national defense information." Trump was also charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, lying to law enforcement, and violating three different statutes related to withholding and concealing government records.
Each count of willfully retaining national defense secrets alone carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The indictment alleges that Trump took information concerning "defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack."
Trump also appeared to have taken a similar number of documents with classification markings as Kingsbury: roughly 300, according to The New York Times. This does not include the thousands of other materials that Trump took and belonged to the government.
Kingsbury pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense in October. She was sentenced to 46 months in prison, with an additional three years of supervised release.
A lawyer for Kingsbury did not respond to a request for comment.
Read the original article on Business Insider
