Ex-FBI lawyer given probation for Russia probe actions

WASHINGTON — A former FBI l awyer was sentenced to probation on Friday for altering an email the Justice Department relied on in its surveillance of an aide to President Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.

Kevin Clinesmith apologized for doctoring the email about Carter Page's relationship with the CIA, saying he was “truly ashamed” of an action that he said had “forever changed the course of his life.”

“I pledge to Your Honor that I will never allow myself to show such poor judgment again,” Clinesmith told U.S. District Judge James Boasberg at a sentencing hearing held remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The sentence is likely to disappoint Trump supporters who have long asserted that the Russia probe was a witch hunt riddled with misconduct, particularly as it involved Page and the government's surveillance of him. The Russia investigation resulted in criminal charges against six Trump associates, but did not find sufficient evidence that Trump campaign associates had illegally coordinated with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of several months, but the judge said he did not think such a punishment was necessary in part because of Clinesmith's evident remorse and because of the way he had already been “threatened, vilified and abused on a nationwide scale.”

“This conduct is the only stain on the defendant's character that I've been able to discern,” Boasberg said in imposing a year of probation.

Though Trump has long railed against the FBI investigation into ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, and suggested that the officials involved in it had broken the law and deserved prison, Clinesmith is so far the only current or former one to have been charged with any wrongdoing.