A former FBI analyst with the Kansas City Division of the agency was sentenced in federal court June 21 for illegally storing classified documents in her home over a period of 12 years.
Kendra Kingsbury, 50, was sentenced to three years and 10 months in federal prison without parole. She plead guilty on Oct. 13, 2022, to two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri announced in a press release.
FBI Employee Indicted for Illegally Removing National Security Documents, Taking Material to Her Home https://t.co/VIQT41qKAy
— National Security Division, U.S. Dept of Justice (@DOJNatSec) May 21, 2021
Kingsbury, who held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/CSI) security clearance, worked as an intelligence analyst for the FBI for more than 12 years, spanning from 2004 to December 2017, the release stated. During that time, Kingsbury had access to national defense and classified information. She also had undergone training presentations and received materials warning against retaining such material at her residence, the release stated. (RELATED: Special Counsel Investigating Biden Classified Docs Has Been Radio Silent For Nearly Six Months)
Kingsbury admitted to repeatedly removing an “abundance of sensitive government materials” totaling 386 classified documents from the FBI facility and to her home during her time at the agency, the release stated. Some of the documents recovered from Kingsbury’s home included electronic documents stored on hard drives, compact discs and other storage media.
The scope of the material retained by Kingsbury pertained to U.S government efforts in counterterrorism, counterintelligence and defense strategies against cyber threats. Kingsbury also retained documents that included “sensitive human-source operations in national security investigations, intelligence gaps regarding hostile foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations, and the technical capabilities of the FBI against counterintelligence and counterterrorism targets,” the release stated.
Though the FBI attempted to discover why Kingsbury took so many documents from a secure workplace and placed them in her home, they found questions pertaining to these matters yielded more questions than answers, the release stated. After reviewing Kingsbury’s phone records, the FBI noted a number of suspicious calls associated with subjects of counterterrorism investigations. These subjects also phoned Kingsbury, though she refused to disclose what the calls were about, the release stated.
“Kingsbury is alleged to have violated our nation’s trust by stealing and retaining classified documents in her home for years. Insider threats are a significant danger to our national security, and we will continue to work relentlessly to identify, pursue and prosecute individuals who pose such a threat,” according to the DOJ.