FBI Analyst Gets Jail Time for Illegally Accessing Right-Wing Lobbyist's Email to 'Protect' Mueller

Nick Arama reporting for RedState

We’ve seen the horrible FBI abuse revealed by the IG report issued by Michael Horowitz. 

But what it revealed was not just the specific abuse but an attitude under former Director James Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe that allowed such things to happen, of people thinking they were entitled to do what they want and they’d get away with it. 

While U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating the FISA abuse and other misconduct, it’s really not clear whether that old attitude has been cleared up and out yet. 

Case in point: Mark Tolson, now a former FBI analyst, who was disturbed that lobbyist Jack Burkman was alleging he had information that might be damaging about Special Counsel Robert Mueller. 

Coincidentally, Tolson’s wife had the password to Burkman’s email account after having done work for him and she gave it to her husband. 

Tolson then illegally accessed Burkman’s email in October 2018, spied around, took screenshots of messages and then offered up those pictures to a journalist. 

Tolson admitted his crime last week, confessing that he did it to “try to protect Director Mueller.” His wife, despite her role in the action, wasn’t charged. 

“This is actually a very serious offense,” Brinkema said. “You’re lucky. Your wife is lucky. The government could have prosecuted her as well.”

“You can’t just rummage through other people’s accounts,” Brinkema added. “You had to have known better.” 

But despite that rebuke, Brinkema didn’t level a very heavy sentence. Tolson pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of computer fraud and abuse and faced a maximum sentence of a year. Brinkema sentenced Tolson to serve a week in jail and serve 50 hours of community service. He did however lose his security clearance and his job as a result. 

His sentence disturbed Burkman, who said he believed that Tolson got off easily because of politics.