Air Force Intel Officer Had Hundreds of Classified and Secret Files at His Florida Home
1 Feb 2023
Military.com | By Thomas Novelly
A retired Air Force intelligence officer accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors last year admitting to illegally possessing hundreds of top secret and classified documents, according to court records filed Friday.
Lt. Col. Robert Birchum, whose career stretched from 1986 to 2018, worked in various jobs in intelligence and served as chief of combat intelligence "for a certain Air Force group," according to court documents. Prior to his retirement, he also worked with classified intelligence information at Joint Special Operations Command, Special Operations Command and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
But on Jan. 24, 2017, the year before his retirement, the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations received information that Birchum had been storing classified information on a thumb drive at his home in Tampa, Florida, the plea deal details. Investigators raided his home that same day, seizing the thumb drive, a computer, a hard drive and numerous paper documents.
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