FBI Employee Indicted Over Illegal Document Removal

An employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been accused of stealing classified information and national security documents from her workplace and keeping them at home. 

Intelligence analyst Kendra Kingsbury of the FBI’s Kansas City Division was charged in a two-count indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Missouri, on Tuesday, May 18.

The federal indictment alleges that 48-year-old Kingsbury took sensitive government material home to her residence in Dodge City for more than a decade.

Kingsbury worked as an intelligence analyst for more than 12 years until she was placed on suspension in December 2017. During her career with the FBI, she held a top-secret security clearance and was assigned to a number of different squads dealing with illegal drug trafficking, violent crime, violent gangs, and counterintelligence. 

It is alleged that Kingsbury improperly removed sensitive government materials – including national defense information and classified documents – from June 2004 to December 15, 2017, and kept them at home. According to the indictment, Kimberly had no need to know most, if not all, of the information contained in those materials.

Kingsbury was charged with two counts of having unauthorized possession of documents relating to national defense. The first count relates to numerous secret documents that describe intelligence sources and methods related to US government efforts to defend America against counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cyber-threats. 

Detailed in those materials are details of open FBI investigations across multiple field offices and documents relating to sensitive human source operations in national security investigations, intelligence gaps regarding hostile foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations, and the technical capabilities of the FBI against counterintelligence and counterterrorism targets.

Count two refers to Kingsbury’s alleged theft of secret documents that describe intelligence sources and methods related to US government efforts to collect intelligence on terrorist groups. Among these materials is information on al Qaeda members on the African continent, including a suspected associate of Osama bin Laden.

Alan Kohler, Jr., assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, said: “The breadth and depth of classified national security information retained by the defendant for more than a decade is simply astonishing.”