Lt. Col. Robert Birchum, who admitted to keeping hundreds of highly classified government documents at his Florida home, had been pilfering confidential material for at least 10 years, according to military records reviewed by The Daily Beast.
In addition, investigators with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations found materials developed in 2000, while Birchum, then a captain, oversaw “near real time U-2 derived imagery and signals intelligence collection, exploitation, and dissemination,” the letter goes on.
The list of Birchum’s wrongs takes up an entire page of the four-page reprimand letter, continuing through the highly-decorated officer’s subsequent postings to the USAF Combat Intelligence Division, the United States Special Operations Command , the Office of the Director of National Intelligence , and his final days at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base. Classified materials from each of these assignments were discovered in Birchum’s house, the letter said.
“Your failure to properly safeguard Secret and TS information is irresponsible and causes me to question your judgment,” Brig. Gen. James wrote. “Your actions are disgraceful and have potentially seriously compromised national security. You have also compromised your integrity and character as an officer… You have engaged in an inexcusable manner that is not only irresponsible, but blatantly disregards our Service values: Your despicable actions reflect poorly on yourself.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to coalition forces at Bagram Air Base, where Birchum was stationed on his final overseas deployment., Birchum’s wife Cristina, a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. government, said the couple met in July 2001, when they were both working at the Pentagon. The two survived the 9/11 terror attack on the compound, and “live with that trauma daily,” her letter said, calling Birchum “a shell of the person” she once knew.
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