WASHINGTON — A former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to altering an email during the Donald Trump-Russia investigation “made a grievous mistake” but should be spared prison time and given probation instead, his attorneys said in a sentencing memorandum Thursday.
Kevin Clinesmith admitted in August to having altered an email used in support of an FBI application to monitor the communications of a former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page. Clinesmith’s lawyers said that although he believed the information he wrote was accurate, he doctored the email by stating that Page was “not a source” for the CIA.
“By altering a colleague’s email, he cut a corner in a job that required far better of him. He failed to live up to the FBI’s and his own high standards of conduct,” his lawyers wrote. “And he committed a crime.”
They said it was “an aberration in a life otherwise characterized by hard work, determination, and dedication to the service of others.”
