Former CIA contractor Reynaldo Regis pleaded guilty Friday to unlawfully taking classified information home and then lying about it to FBI investigators.
There is no indication that Regis, 53, is suspected of giving the information to journalists or foreign governments, or that he was caught as part of the Justice Department’s attempt to crack down on criminal leaks.
Regis faces a maximum of five years in prison when he’s sentenced on Sept. 21, the Justice Department said, offering a potential contrast to light penalties in cases of mishandling records by more prominent officials.
A Justice Department press release said Regis, assigned to the CIA from 2006 to November 2016, “conducted unauthorized searches in classified databases and copied classified information into personal notebooks,” and that “FBI agents recovered approximately 60 notebooks containing classified information” from his home.
“The classified information contained in the notebooks included information relating to highly sensitive intelligence reports, disclosure of which could cause serious damage to the national security,” the Justice Department said.
Court records were not immediately posted to the PACER document platform. Regis lives in suburban Maryland but pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady of the eastern district of Virginia, the Justice Department said.
John Zwerling, an attorney for Regis, said he wanted to resolve a dark chapter in his life.
“Mr. Regis is a decent human being who has dedicated a major portion of his life to serving his country with honor. He made a serious mistake with dealing with some classified information,” Zwerling told the Washington Examiner. “It is his hope that he can find forgiveness and move on with his life.”
Zwerling declined to say if Regis will ask for leniency citing the sentence of former CIA Director David Petraeus and the non-prosecution of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Petraeus, who led the CIA during Regis’ time as a contractor, admitted in a 2015 plea deal that he stored eight notebooks with highly classified information at his home, and that he shared the books with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. Petraeus also admitted that he lied about doing so to FBI agents.
Petreaus received a sentence of two years on probation and a $100,000 fine.
Clinton, meanwhile, was not prosecuted for storing classified information on a private and insecure computer server in her basement. In announcing there would be no criminal charges, then-FBI Director James Comey said prosecutors could not prove she had criminal intent. President Trump gave his third pardon in March to former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, who served nearly a year in prison for taking six photos inside a nuclear submarine, an offense Trump often likened to Clinton’s case.
The treatment of lower-ranking government employees and contractors generally is harsher than the penalties given to more famous officeholders.
Earlier this year, former FBI agent Terry Albury became the second alleged journalistic source prosecuted by the Trump administration for mishandling classified information. Albury, who pleaded guilty, faces between three and five years in prison. Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, meanwhile, face no charges for allegedly mishandling classified information and lying to investigators about a media disclosure, respectively.
“The short answer is yes, there is a double standard,” prominent national security defense attorney Nancy Hollander told the Washington Examiner after Albury’s plea. “The higher the rank, the lower the sentence.”
