A black former Minnesota FBI counterterrorism agent pleaded guilty Tuesday to leaking classified documents to a reporter, saying he knew it was illegal but felt he had to act against a culture in the bureau that often treats minority communities with suspicion and disrespect, the Associated Press reports. Terry Albury, 39, appeared in federal court in St. Paul on one count of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and one count of unauthorized retention of national defense information. Albury faces a likely sentence of between 37 and 57 months in prison. U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright did not set a sentencing date.
Albury’s attorneys, JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel, said that after working for the FBI in Iraq, Albury “was assigned to the counterterrorism squad and was required first-hand to implement FBI investigation directives that profiled and intimidated minority communities in Minnesota and other locations in which Terry served.” Albury was accused of sharing documents with an online news organization including a 2011 document classified as secret on how the FBI assesses confidential informants, and an undated document “relating to threats posed by certain individuals from a particular Middle Eastern country.” The Intercept published a story on Jan. 31, 2017 citing the document in the Albury case and discussing the FBI’s process of assessing informants and recruiting them by identifying their “motivations and vulnerabilities.”