A trio of senators who have been critical of leaks of classified information are asking a federal judge to spare a former aide from prison time after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with reporters.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., vice chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and former chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have asked for leniency for the committee’s former security director, James Wolfe, who in October admitted he had made false statements to investigators “concerning whether he had provided unclassified, but not otherwise publicly available, information to reporters.”
“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 in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Wolfe’s lawyers submitted the letter to the judge Tuesday, according to Politico.
Wolfe is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 20, and federal sentencing guidelines indicate he could receive between zero and six months in prison. Federal prosecutors, however, have pushed for a two-year sentence, alleging he “significantly endangered national security.”
“The fact that Wolfe, by virtue of his national security training and responsibilities, lied in a national security investigation, the significance of which he was particularly situated to appreciate, is further reason to send a strong message that such conduct will be severely punished,” prosecutors wrote.
As part of his guilty plea, Wolfe admitted he repeatedly lied to the FBI in its investigation into an unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding court-ordered surveillance on Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy adviser who had connections to Russia.
Wolfe was involved in subpoenaing Page and scheduling his testimony to the committee.
The former Senate staffer said he had communicated with four reporters, including a New York Times reporter Ali Watkins, with whom he had an extramarital affair. Investigators were unable to establish whether Wolfe leaked classified information to anyone and prosecutors noted that his communications with the reporters may not have been illegal. Wolfe has insisted he did not pass classified information to Watkins.
