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    Fact check: Multiple non-spies have received prison sentences under   
   Espionage Act provision Trump is charged with violating   
   Daniel Dale   
   By Daniel Dale, CNN   
   Published 4:36 PM EDT, Thu June 15, 2023   
   Washington CNN  —   
      
   Former President Donald Trump argued in a Tuesday speech that it is   
   “outrageous” for him to be charged under the Espionage Act for having   
   classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and residence.   
      
   “The Espionage Act has been used to go after traitors and spies. It has   
   nothing to do with a former president legally keeping his own documents,”   
   Trump said.   
      
   But classified documents, like all official records from a presidency,   
   legally belong to the federal government, not to an ex-president. And   
   Trump is also misleading people about the breadth of the Espionage Act.   
      
   Facts First: The Espionage Act does not merely target “traitors and   
   spies.” Even during Trump’s own presidency, obscure citizens who kept   
   classified material at their homes, and were never accused of   
   communicating it to anyone or aiding a foreign country, were convicted and   
   sentenced to years in prison under the very same Espionage Act provision   
   Trump is now charged with breaking.   
      
   The Espionage Act provision under which Trump was indicted by a Florida   
   federal grand jury on 31 counts, Section 793(e), makes it a crime when   
   someone without authorization “willfully retains” national defense   
   information “and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the   
   United States entitled to receive it.” Contrary to the rhetoric this week   
   from Trump and allies like Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, someone   
   certainly does not have to be a spy to be charged under that willful   
   retention provision.   
      
   “The Espionage Act is routinely relied upon to prosecute individuals for   
   willful retention or dissemination of national defense information. While   
   the law’s name makes one think it only concerns actual spying, its   
   provisions are far broader than that narrow concept and have been upheld   
   by the courts time and time again,” said Bradley Moss, a national security   
   lawyer in private practice.   
      
   House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise argued on Fox on Wednesday that   
   Trump would not have faced this indictment “if his name was Donald Smith,”   
   an average American. In reality, though, the willful retention provision   
   of the Espionage Act has in recent years alone ensnared multiple people   
   who had not previously been in the public eye.   
      
   Here are seven cases in which little-known Americans have been convicted   
   and sentenced to prison under this provision between 2017, when Trump took   
   office, and this year. None of the cases involved charges of actual   
   espionage.   
      
   Robert Birchum, 2023   
      
   Birchum, who was an Air Force lieutenant colonel with a decorated 29-year   
   military career, pleaded guilty in February to one count of violating the   
   willful retention of national defense information provision after   
   investigators discovered during the first month of the Trump presidency in   
   2017 that Birchum had stored more than 300 classified documents or files   
   in his home, a storage pod on his property and his officer’s quarters   
   overseas. Birchum was not charged with spying or giving the documents to   
   anyone, and he cooperated with investigators and conveyed remorse – but a   
   Trump-appointed judge sentenced him this month to 3 years in prison.   
      
   Kendra Kingsbury, 2022   
      
   Kingsbury, who was an analyst for the FBI, pleaded guilty in 2022 to two   
   counts of violating the willful retention of national defense information   
   provision after she was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2021 for   
   possessing classified documents in her home. The Justice Department said   
   Kingsbury took home approximately 386 classified documents from work over   
   more than 12 years, including secret information related to   
   counterterrorism intelligence sources and methods, open investigations,   
   the FBI’s technical capabilities, intelligence gaps, and al Qaeda in   
   Africa. Kingsbury, who was not charged with spying or giving documents to   
   anyone, is scheduled to be sentenced next week.   
      
   Jeremy Brown, 2022   
      
   Brown, a retired Army Special Forces sergeant who later became involved   
   with far-right group the Oath Keepers and ran for the Florida state House   
   as a Republican, was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 for both   
   possession of unregistered grenades and guns and for violating the willful   
   retention of national defense information provision. When the FBI searched   
   Brown’s home in 2021 upon arresting him over his alleged involvement in   
   the pro-Trump riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, they found the   
   unlawful weapons and a classified “Trip Report” he had written in 2011   
   about the search in Afghanistan for missing soldier Bowe Bergdahl. Brown   
   was sentenced in April to 7 years and 3 months in prison, though not   
   solely over the classified document.   
      
   Ahmedelhadi Yassin Serageldin, 2019   
      
   Serageldin, who had worked as a systems engineer for defense company   
   Raytheon, pleaded guilty in 2019 to one count of violating the willful   
   retention of national defense information provision. The Justice   
   Department said he had more than 570 documents marked as classified at his   
   home, including some regarding US missile defense, and had altered or   
   removed the classification markings on about 50 documents. He was not   
   charged with spying or giving documents to anyone. He was sentenced in   
   2020 to 18 months in prison.   
      
   Harold Martin, 2019   
      
   Martin, who was a contractor for the National Security Agency, pleaded   
   guilty in 2019 to one count of violating the willful retention of national   
   defense information provision after he was indicted in 2017 for   
   possessing, in his home and car, a massive quantity of classified material   
   he had taken from work over the course of more than 15 years; he had been   
   charged with 20 counts for 20 particular documents identified in the   
   indictment. Martin was not charged with spying or giving the documents to   
   anyone, and his lawyer portrayed him as a “compulsive hoarder.” He was   
   sentenced in 2019 to 9 years in prison.   
      
   Weldon Marshall, 2018   
      
   Marshall pleaded guilty in 2018 to one count of violating the willful   
   retention of national defense information provision for having classified   
   material at his home from his job as a defense contractor and his prior   
   service in the Navy. The Justice Department said he retained classified   
   information about the country’s “nuclear command, control and   
   communications” and about ground operations in Afghanistan, among other   
   matters. He was not charged with spying or giving the documents to anyone.   
   He was sentenced in 2018 to 41 months in prison.   
      
   Nghia Pho, 2017   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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