A former FBI lawyer was sentenced to probation for altering an e-mail that the Justice Department relied on during its surveillance of an aide to president Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.
Kevin Clinesmith apologized for doctoring the e-mail about Carter Page’s relationship with the CIA, saying he was “truly ashamed” of what he had done.
“This conduct is the only stain on the defendant’s character that I’ve been able to discern,” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in imposing a sentence of 12 months probation rather than the prison sentence that prosecutors had requested.
Mr. Clinesmith is the only person charged so far as part of a special investigation into actions by law enforcement and intelligence agencies during the probe of ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. That investigation was opened in 2019 by John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, at the direction of then-attorney-general William Barr.
Mr. Barr last October named Mr. Durham a special counsel as a way to ensure the continuity of his investigation during the Biden administration. The current status of Mr. Durham’s work was not clear, although Mr. Barr has said that the focus of the inquiry is now centred on the FBI and not the CIA.
Mr. Clinesmith pleaded guilty in September to altering a 2017 e-mail that he had received from the CIA to say that Mr. Page was “not a source” for the agency even though the original e-mail indicated that he was. As a result, when the Justice Department applied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for the fourth and final warrant to eavesdrop on Mr. Page’s communications, it did not reveal that Mr. Page had had an existing relationship with the CIA.
That information would have been important to disclose to the secretive court to the extent it could have helped explain any contact Mr. Page was having with Russians as understandable and not nefarious.
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