It’s quite common for the Justice Department to issue press releases, announcing new federal charges or new criminal convictions in cases that most Americans never hear anything about. They deal with suspected criminals who are largely anonymous to the public, and the cases have little larger significance.
But every once in a while, a Justice Department press release stands out for reasons that are not immediately obvious. The Associated Press in Hawaii reported late last week on a local woman who’ll spend three months behind bars for a notable reason: She mishandled classified documents.
A Honolulu woman who pleaded guilty to taking classified documents while working at the U.S. Embassy in Manila was sentenced today to 90 days in jail. Asia Janay Lavarello pleaded guilty last year to one count of knowingly removing classified information, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. She removed “certain classified documents” from the embassy before hosting a dinner party in her hotel room, with guests including three American co-workers and two foreign nationals, her plea agreement said.
As federal prosecutors made clear, Lavarello, a civilian employee of the Defense Department, worked as the executive assistant to the Commander for the United States Indo-Pacific Command Joint Intelligence Operation Center, where she maintained top secret security clearance. She was also a student at National Intelligence University.
While on temporary assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Manilla, she took sensitive materials to her hotel room. During a dinner party, a co-worker noticed documents marked “secret.”
Lavarello later pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified materials and retained them in an unauthorized location, though she and her defense attorney insisted she didn’t plan to do anything malicious with the documents. CNN’s report added:
Lavarello was working on a classified thesis at the time, her lawyer Birney Bervar told CNN. She had been encouraged to pursue the thesis and been working on it at the embassy’s secure information facility until Covid-19 shut things down earlier that year, her lawyer said. The documents she took home were three other classified theses, her lawyer told CNN, and she had no intention of transmitting the classified information or of harming the United States.
Her benign intentions notwithstanding, Lavarello broke the law, put sensitive documents at risk, got caught, and will now pay a criminal penalty.
“Government employees authorized to access classified information should face imprisonment if they misuse that authority in violation of criminal law as Ms. Lavarello did in this case,” said U.S. Attorney Clare Connors. “Such breaches of national security are serious violations of criminal law, and we will pursue them.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge Merrill added, “The American people entrust government employees with the responsibility to ensure classified information is properly handled and secure. Ms. Lavarello violated this trust when she removed classified documents from the U.S. Embassy Manila.”
My point, of course, is not to pick on a young woman, largely unknown to the public, who made an unfortunate mistake. Rather, I bring all of this up because of the contextual significance.
As has become clear of late, Donald Trump also stands accused of mishandling classified materials — including documents clearly marked at the “top secret” level —and retained them in an unauthorized location known as a haven for spies. If the former president’s defenders are inclined to argue that such transgressions are unimportant, and in the real world no one is ever actually punished for such offenses, they need only to look at Hawaii’s Asia Janay Lavarello to know better. Indeed, look again at the aforementioned quotes, but imagine them with Trump’s name transposed for Lavarello’s: “Government employees authorized to access classified information should face imprisonment if they misuse that authority in violation of criminal law as [Mr. Trump] did in this case. Such breaches of national security are serious violations of criminal law, and we will pursue them.” Or, “The American people entrust government employees with the responsibility to ensure classified information is properly handled and secure. [Mr. Trump] violated this trust when [he] removed classified documents from the [White House].” If regular people are prosecuted and sentenced for such crimes, shouldn’t the former president — a private citizen — at least face similar scrutiny?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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