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 knowingly doctored the email by stating that Page was not a source for the CIA.
By altering a colleagues email, he cut a corner in a job that required far better of him. He failed to live up to the FBIs 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.
Clinesmith was charged as part of an inquiry…