Retired Air Force officer sentenced to 3 years for storing classified information at his Florida home

By Kaanita Iyer and Holmes Lybrand, CNN

(CNN) — A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel was sentenced to three years in federal prison Thursday for storing files with classified information at his Florida home, the Department of Justice announced.

Robert Birchum pleaded guilty earlier this year to unlawfully possessing and retaining classified documents relating to national defense, the department said in a news release.

Birchum served nearly three decades in the Air Force and held several roles that required him to handle classified information, prosecutors said. In his plea agreement, Birchum admitted to having stored hundreds of files that contained information with top secret, secret or confidential classification markings in unauthorized locations.

In 2017, investigators found that Birchum “knowingly removed more than 300 classified files or documents” and kept them in “his home, his overseas officer’s headquarters, and a storage pod in his driveway,” according to the release. More than 30 of those files and documents were marked “Top Secret” – the highest level of classification.

Two such files on a thumb drive found at Birchum’s home contained information on the National Security Agency’s “capabilities and methods of collection and targets’ vulnerabilities,” the release said.

“Both of these documents were classified as Top Secret/SCI, and their unauthorized release could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States,” the department said.

The thumb drive contained 135 files marked as containing classified information, and a hard drive also found at his home had 10 files that had “information marked as Secret,” according to Birchum’s plea agreement. Investigators also found 48 paper documents that contained information marked as secret.

The case comes to a close as the Pentagon grapples with the discovery of leaked classified documents on social media. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was arrested in April under the Espionage Act after he allegedly took and posted a trove of documents online. He had been warned by his superiors in the Air Force months earlier over his mishandling of classified documents, prosecutors said.

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