Mr. Clinesmith received no prison time because, in the words of the sentencing judge, “Anybody who has watched what Mr. Clinesmith has suffered is not someone who will readily act in that fashion. Weighing all of these factors together — both in terms of the damages he has caused and what he has suffered and the positives in his own life — I believe a probationary sentence is appropriate here and will therefore impose it.” Charlie Savage, “Ex-FBI Lawyer Who Altered Email in Russia Case Is Given Probation,” New York Times, January 30, 2020, p. A20.
One year probation and 400 hours of community service.
An FBI lawyer, sworn to uphold the law, falsified a document that damaged the lives of others. including portraying Carter Page as a Russian spy and subjecting him to unwarranted surveillance. Carter Paige was working with the CIA at the time. (See Post of August 17, 2020 on Clinesmith’s charges) The judge should have weighed those factors as well.
As for the likelihood of Mr. Clinesmith’s recidivism? The lighter the punishment in relation to the harm of the crime, the more likely the offender offends again — ask any experienced prosecutor who witnesses the same defendants recycling through his or her court. Ask any judge who has given a light sentence and a lecture how effective both were in terms of preventing a repeat performance by a woe-is-me defendant. Even Laurie Laughlin, the ambitious and bribing Hallmark actress mother, got real time for paying to get her daughter into USC. Her press coverage surpassed that of Clinesmith’s. And she is no longer on the Hallmark channel. There is no line of directors and producers seeking her in their films. And the likelihood of her hoping up with another college admissions grifter? Zero.
Equal justice under the law?