An FBI intelligence official has been alleged of removing caches of classified documents and sensitive information on national defence and government informants for more than ten years and storing them at her home.
The accusation unsealed against the 48-year-old Kendra Kingsbury of Dodge City charged her with two counts of illegal possession of national defence documents. The indictments did not include allegations that the analyst had shared the data.
Kingsbury is scheduled for trial in Kansas City on June 1. An attorney for the analyst could not be contacted for comment.
“The depth and breadth of classified national security information reserved by the defendant for more than ten years is astonishing,” said the assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, Alan E. Kohler Jr. “The defendant, who’s well trained in controlling classified information, put her nation’s sensitive secrets at danger.”
According to the court, Kingsbury, who was allocated to the FBI’s Kansas City Division, began stealing the documents starting in 2005 and continued through November 2018, when she was placed on suspension.
Many of the files, prosecutors said, “explain intelligence methods and sources related to United States government attempts to defend against counterintelligence, cyber threats, and counterterrorism.”
“The documents include sensitive information on the FBI’s nationwide priorities and objectives, including particular open investigations across multiple field offices,” prosecutors said. “Also, there are documents relating to detailed human source operations in FBI, the technical capabilities of the national security investigations, and intelligence gaps regarding hostile foreign terrorist organizations and intelligence services.”
According to court documents, some of the data had information about terror agents affiliated with al-Qaeda and an “alleged associate” of the group’s captain Osama bin Laden, who was killed a decade ago by United States forces in Pakistan.
