#Ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleads guilty to falsifying documents in Russia probe

Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty on Wednesday to falsifying documents used to monitor 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page during a hearing in federal court in Washington.

“At the time I believed the information that I was providing in the email was accurate, but I am agreeing that the language that I entered into the email was not originally there and that I inserted it in there,” Clinesmith said.

District Judge James Boasberg asked Clinesmith if he “intentionally altered the email.”

“Yes, your honor,” Clinesmith said.

It’s the first guilty plea for John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed last May by Attorney General William Barr to review the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe known as “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Clinesmith admitted falsifying a document used by the FBI to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to surveil Page.

Clinesmith sent his supervisor an email from the CIA that said Page was “not a source.”

But the CIA has told investigators that Page was an “operational contact,” had been between 2008 and 2013 and had supplied them with information about his contacts with Russian officials.

President Trump has ripped the Obama administration for spying on his 2016 campaign and has said the FBI’s investigation into “Russian collusion” was a political hit job intended to discredit his White House victory.

Clinesmith is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 10. He faces up to six months in prison.

With Post wires