Former Air Force contractor pleads guilty to taking 2,500 pages of classified documents
“I think a lot of people might be surprised at just how easy it is to abscond with classified documents.”
A former U.S. Air Force contractor recently pleaded guilty to illegally taking about 2,500 pages of classified documents.
U.S. Attorney David DeVillers’ office said Thursday a former contractor with the United States Air Force pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Thursday to illegally taking approximately 2,500 pages of classified documents.
Izaak Vincent Kemp, 35, of Fairborn, was charged on Jan. 25 by a Bill of Information, according to the Department of Justice.
According to court documents, Kemp was employed as a contractor at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) from July 2016 to May 2019, and later as a contractor at the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). While working at AFRL and NASIC on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Kemp had Top Secret security clearance.
DeVillers said despite having training on various occasions on how to safeguard classified material, Kemp took 112 classified documents and retained them at his home. Law enforcement discovered the more than 100 documents, which contained approximately 2,500 pages of material classified at the SECRET level, while executing a search warrant at Kemp’s home on May 25, 2019.
The documents were discovered during a search in 2019, after a warrant was issued alleging that the home was a “marijuana growing facility.”
The documents were marked “Special Access Programs,” indicating that they were stored in a protective environment.
“During a voluntary interview, which took place during execution of a search warrant, Kemp admitted to printing the classified materials at work and bringing them home for storage,” FBI Special Agent Brandt Pangburn said at the time.
When the case first became public in the summer of 2019, many questions arose about how an employee could take thousands of pages of classified documents from a workplace.
“I think a lot of people might be surprised at just how easy it is to abscond with classified documents,” Sean Bigley, a security clearance defense attorney and a former investigator for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, told the Dayton Daily News in July 2019.
Unauthorized removal or retention of classified documents is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors, the prosecuting attorneys said.
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Comments
Hope they hang him by his nuts, but probably will get a slap on wrist and better paying job by Xiden administration
Nah, he’ll claim he’s a woman in a man’s body, and either biden or the ‘Ho will pardon him.
I had the SAME thinking. At this point, what’s it matter anymore—America has crapped upon its enviable heritage and its accomplishments and sold its soul—a ‘sale’ it’s going to deeply regret. Just as ‘the crowd’ rejected Jesus and would rather a known murderer be set free instead, so ‘Americans’ have rejected the 3rd greatest President in U.S. history in exchange for a corrupt, lying, China-bought-and-sold drooling moron who’s also a pedophile: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/11/video-joe-biden-forces-little-girl-touch-crotch/
Just how easy it is to abscond…
And to think Sandy Berger had to stuff the files down his pants. Wonder what he was gonna do with the stuff?
Berger should still be rotting in prison.
For those who don’t know the backstory of this Clinton hack:
Sandy Berger. Former Clinton Aide, Admits Stealing and Shredding Classified Documents From the National Archives:
http://www.parentadvocates.org/nicecontent/dsp_printable.cfm?articleID=5772
Destroying evidence against Billary.
The Berger case was one of the most obvious examples of the MSM NOT reporting a major story. It’s not always what or how you report, it’s what you don’t.
It does rather appear that one can walk out of many secure facilities with documents, whether these are stuffed down one’s pants or on a thumb drive that one is not supposed to have, and that the systems aren’t supposed to connect to. We see these stories in the media a few times per year.
If the offender is an Air Force E-4 or contractor employee, it leads to prison.
If the offender is a high administration official, it leads to a wrist-slap.
The little people need to be kept in their place, unless it embarrasses a Republican, then they are whistle blowers shining the light of truth.
There was no mention of why the contractor took the documents, or what he did with them.
Being able to take Special Access Program (SAP) documents from a facility requires people get fired. Printed documents should only be printed from a central printer, and each printed document given a control number with tracked storage and periodic and random inventory.
Yes, this guys needs to be strung up, but the security cadre where these documents came from (civilian, contactor, and military) need to be fired as well.
LOL. No. Completely impractical and will waste valuable time & resources for no discernable gain. The sheer amount of classified printouts would make such a system collapse under its own weight within a year.
Dude was untrustworthy. That unfortunate fact will not be mitigated by tightening the sphincter on all printouts. Much like you won’t solve murder by outlawing guns, you won’t solve traitors by outlawing printers.
This was “special access program” (SAP) material. It garners special and additional protection and controls. Loss is extremely damaging. It is highly and stringently controlled material.
Also, for normal classified material, any command that allows classified material to be printed without controls is asking for problems, even for secret documents with no additional caveats or additional control requirements such as special compartmentalization, originator controls, etc.
If I owned a facility that lost SAP material, I would have a new security team on the job the next day. All the former security team would be in polygraph Hell, having their accesses revoked, lock combinations changed, IT scrubbed and audited, and making statements under oath.
Oh, and if a political appointee was taking this material home, I would do the same to them. No one would fire me. The firestorm for doing so would be intense and simply not worth it. The political appointee would spend time making formal apologies. They would likely get away with it by promising to not do it anymore. Yes, the little guy would lose their job at a minimum, and perhaps go to jail.
There are two standards, at least. It’s not right, and needs to be corrected.
Sigh. Snowden removed easily 3,000x the quantity of documents of this numbnut and he didn’t print squat. He had passed a poly prior to becoming a traitor. It’s not the magic wand you see in the movies.
This farcical policy you envision that tightly controls printers is not going to solve the problem of an untrustworthy person in a position of trust. It’s not even going to help the problem. It will create problems.
Speaking of creating problems, threatening your own team – who presumably are trying to do a difficult job to the best of their ability – with termination because you demand that they be held accountable for the corrupt actions of another is a great way to lose your team. Not to mention that your team won’t ever learn from any mistakes.
High administration officials usually don’t get wrist slaps — the FBI, DOJ, and inspectors general excuse their behavior.
“The documents were discovered during a search in 2019, after a warrant was issued alleging that the home was a “marijuana growing facility.” ”
What a nimnal.
No reasonable prosecutor would bring this case it does obviously not pass the Clinton—Comey test.
Or was that only applicable to Democrat politicians?
Epstein didn’t kill himself.
Stupid man. Has he never heard of Bit Bleach?
“… No reasonable prosecutor would bring this case it does obviously not pass the Clinton—Comey test. …”
No reasonable prosecutor wanted to commit arkancide.
The trick, I guess, is to be powerful enough to get away with it – especially after getting caught.
Sandy Berger absconded with TS1 documents by placing them in his pants. “Sir, are those documents in your pants or are you just happy to see me!” I seem to recall he taped them to his legs also.
Walking out with Secret documents would be a lot easier than walking out with TS documents. I have worked on multiple occasions with both. My last job working with classified material, the first thing I did in the morning was print out a series of messages that came in overnight. I then consolidated/condensed them into presentations for my bosses. At the end of the day, I shredded everything, but if I had wanted to, I could have walked out with at least some of the paperwork, but never did. I just wanted to go home and forget about everything I had worked with all day.
Hillary’s mishandling of classified information was worse.
I suspect this story is an iceberg, as in 95% of the actual facts are beneath the surface and we’re not going to see them. If you are working with classified material of any level, and take anything home that you think isn’t classified, you’re going to be wrong a certain percentage of the time.
That being said, this certainly looks like an intentional act with an undefined level of malice.
You take classified documents for only two reasons: to destroy them, which is probably pointless unless they’re unique and have no backups, as apparently the documents Berger stole were, or to give them to someone else, either a sponsor or a buyer. Kemp didn’t destroy them, so who did he copy them for?
My first thought is that he was angling for a much better position with a competitor contractor.
Security in government is mostly a farce. It’s largely a show to make the public believe government is protecting everyone and everything, when it isn’t — about like the TSA.
There are so many people with access to classified material, and so little to keep them from copying and/or stealing it, that only fear of punishment could slow it down. There hasn’t been any of that since the Rosenbergs were electrocuted.