WASHINGTON (AP) — Three high-ranking senators asked a federal judge for leniency on behalf of a former Senate intelligence committee staffer who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, even as the government argues that the ex-staffer “significantly endangered national security” by speaking with reporters.
The letter from Democrats Mark Warner and Dianne Feinstein and Republican Richard Burr was included in a sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday by James Wolfe’s attorneys.
Wolfe was the longtime director of security for the committee — one of multiple congressional panels investigating potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign — and pleaded guilty in October to a single charge in the three-count indictment against him.
Prosecutors said Wolfe told a reporter in October 2017 that he had served someone with a subpoena involving the potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign and later lied to FBI agents about the exchange. Their names weren’t made public.
After the reporter published a story about the subpoena, Wolfe congratulated them, saying in a message, “I’m glad you got the scoop,” according to the indictment.
Wolfe was not accused of leaking classified information. Prosecutors said Wolfe was in regular contact with several reporters who covered the committee, in violation of Senate rules. He also maintained a yearslong personal relationship with one reporter that he lied about until being confronted with a photograph of himself and the journalist.
In court documents Tuesday, Wolfe’s lawyers said he deeply regrets his actions and violating his marital vows and argued that he shouldn’t serve any time behind bars.
The senators expressed a similar sentiment in their letter to the judge.
“Jim has already lost much through these events, to include his career and reputation, and we do not believe there is any public utility in depriving him of his freedom,” the senators wrote.
Prosecutors, however, argued that Wolfe lied to agents so he wouldn’t lose his job and, in doing so, “caused significant disruption to a government function and significantly endangered the national security.”
“He abused that trust by using his position to cultivate relationships with reporters, employing encrypted communications, and offering to serve as a confidential source,” the prosecutors wrote.
Left and right upper crust white boys in positions of power skate on jail time for criminal activity. Yet Rosa Maria Ortega, a U.S. resident green card holder, will sit for 8 years in prison for mistakenly thinking her status allowed her to vote, and GASP!!!, she had the temerity to think living here under our laws and paying taxes somehow translated into access to the voting booth. 8 years. People serve less time for negligently running someone over with a car and killing them.
Welcome to the shining city on the hill.
Barack Obama (on TV): …to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one…
Driver: You hear that line? Line’s for you.
Jackie Cogan: Don’t make me laugh. One people. It’s a myth created by Thomas Jefferson.
Driver: Oh, so now you’re going to have a go at Jefferson, huh?
Jackie Cogan: My friend, Thomas Jefferson is an American saint because he wrote the words ‘All men are created equal’, words he clearly didn’t believe since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He’s a rich white snob who’s sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So, yeah, he writes some lovely words and aroused the rabble and they went and died for those words while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now fuckin’ pay me.
Fuck him… send him to jail
Hey, I feel for the guy. But senators shouldn’t be big-footing his trial. Regular folk don’t get that kind of favor. For the senators to do this is a bad move both morally and politically
Michael Flynn had something like 87 pages in his presentencing request to the judge comprised solely of letters from supporters and friends attesting to his character, provided to hopefully lessen his sentence. The same right is accorded any citizen awaiting sentencing on a criminal conviction. This staffer knows important people, so he implored those important people to write letters. The fact your average citizen doesn’t have important friends should not be held against those that do, no?
Watch him get more prison time than Cohen.