An FBI intelligence analyst has been indicted on charges of illegal removing troves of classified documents and other national security information and storing them at her home over the course of more than a decade.
Kendra Kingsbury, 48, had national security clearance and worked in the FBI’s Kansas City office until she was suspended in December 2017.
The two-count indictment charged the Dodge City, Kanas, woman with two counts of unauthorized possession of national defense documents. She’s accused of removing records between 2004 and 2017.
Kingsbury’s arraignment is set for June 1 in Kansas City.
“Kingsbury is alleged to have violated our nation’s trust by stealing and retaining classified documents in her home for years,” Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a news release. “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.”
Alan E. Kohler, Jr. Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, added, “The breadth and depth of classified national security information retained by the defendant for more than a decade is simply astonishing.”
“The defendant, who’s well trained in handling classified information, put her country’s sensitive secrets at risk. The FBI will go to great lengths to investigate individuals who put their own interests above U.S. national security, including when the individual is an FBI employee.”
As an intelligence analysts for more than a decade, Kingsbury was assigned to various FBI squads that focus on illegal drug trafficking, violent crime, gangs and counterintelligence.
The documents included information on al-Qaeda members in Africa, including a suspected associate of Osama bin Laden.
“Our community’s safety and our nation’s security were jeopardized by this criminal behavior,” Acting U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore for the Western District of Missouri said. “Those entrusted with such grave responsibility must be held accountable if they violate their oath and betray their country. I appreciate the diligence and professionalism with which the FBI thoroughly investigated one of their own and brought the perpetrator to justice.”
Special Agent in Charge Timothy Langan of the FBI Kansas City Field Office said Kingsbury violated her oath to support and defend the Constitution.
“With that oath comes the obligation to protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure to safeguard our national security,” Langan said. “Kingsbury’s actions are a betrayal of trust not only to the FBI but also the American people. They can be reassured that the FBI takes any and all allegations of wrongdoing by employees
