DOD Employee Pleads Guilty to Moving Top Secret Info from Protected Site
Margaret Ashby pleaded guilty to the theft of classified information from a DOD facility in Georgia. Her motivation for illegally retaining the classified documents has not been publicly released.
Under a plea deal, Margaret Ashby, 26, of Henderson, Nev., waived her right to be charged by indictment.
Ashby began working as a civilian employee at the DOD component agency in the Southern District of Georgia in March 2020. from February 2022 to May 2022, she admittedly handled “documents and materials containing classified information of the United States,”according to her signed plea deal. During this period, Ashby “knowingly removed such documents and materials without authority…with the intent to retain them at unauthorized locations, including her residence.” She also saved these documents on a “personal computing device.”
The reason Ashby unlawfully retained the documents was not mentioned in the press release or the plea deal.
Lifetime, Binding NDA
As part of her employment, she obtained a top-secret security clearance that includes a lifetime binding non-disclosure agreement. Along with her security clearance, Ashby had access to secret and top secret information within several Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) programs. Both top top secret and secret materials are defined as information that “reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security” in the wrong hands.
In that agreement, Ashby acknowledged she understood that “all protected information to which (she) may obtain access hereafter, is and will remain the property of the United States Government unless and until otherwise determined by an appropriate official or final ruling of a court of law.” She knew that any disclosure, or in her case, mishandling of said information was in violation of the law.
Ashby Sentencing
Ashby has not been sentenced yet as a federal judge needs time to consider the penalty after reviewing U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. The plea deal stipulates that “the court is not bound by any estimate of sentence given or recommendations made by Defendant’s counsel, the government, the U.S. Probation Office, or anyone else” but “may impose a sentence up to the statutory maximum.”
She could face up to five years in prison, along with three years of supervised release. The charges also come with significant financial penalties up to $250,000.
A Problem Since the Reagan Administration
The mishandling of classified government documents has made a lot of news in the last several years with several high profile government officials being found guilty of handling, storing, and, in some instances, hoarding sensitive materials.
Hillary Clinton received documents marked as sensitive on private servers and former Vice President Mike Pence had classified documents in his Indiana home.
In even more high profile cases, President Joe Biden kept classified documents in his garage at his Delaware home and former President Donald Trump has an ongoing case in which he’s accused of hoarding hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
However, the mishandling of classified documents isn’t rare nor reserved to high profile government officials.
National Archive Official Mark Bradley said that since 2010 they’ve received over 80 calls from libraries around the country that found classified documents from members of congress, according to his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee from last year. The problem of mishandling classified documents by government officials has been a problem since the Reagan era.
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