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>it could also be completely innocent and the person just wanted to work from home

That isn’t completely innocent. If this were a case where they accidentally brought classified home, that is “innocent” and being careless. Intentionally removing it to “work from home” is intentionally and knowingly stealing classified information, regardless of what you plan to do with it. This type sentence is in line with knowingly taking classified material [1][2], as opposed to accidentally removing it, or unknowingly hainv it in your possession (like if you are emailed classified information).

[1] https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/sacramento/news...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-nsa-employee-sentenced...

You are trying to inject uncertainty where there is none for the purposes of a prosecution like this.

It doesn’t matter the purpose of taking secret documents. Only that the defendant knew that they were secret and removed them from a secure facility. And since they were an FBI agent, there is documentation of when they were given access to secret documents, so the defense can’t argue they didn’t know the rules around control Those documents. Every person who is granted legal access to secret or better signs a legally binding contract that explains these things.

You're right as far as it comes to the prosecution itself. But there's additional value both to the FBI and to the public at large to determine the more general nature of the infractions. The FBI likely has enough information to infer if this was malicious or just acting outside of regulation out of carelessness/complacency/convenience.

The rest of us are left to conjecture and reading the tea leaves.

You can't innocently take classified documents home.

Can you innocently store them with your Corvette?

When I got my clearance, it was made very clear to me: If I take them home or store them with my Corvette or have them on my email server, I'm going to jail.

If you're POTUS or authorized by the POTUS things are different since they are the classification authority.

There is still process you have to follow. Being president doesn't magically make you immune to rules and process. No, trump could not just "think they are declassified and they are", and that's not how it works, and he knew that.

Well, it really does work that way. The classification stems from a series of executive orders [1] which long post-date things such as the Espionage Act.

The thing is that Biden is the president not Trump so Biden could declassify everything at Mar-a-lago but Trump can't.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_...

Politicians don't sign any NDAs to get their clearances; they have a separate process.

This is why they're so willing to leak things as they don't actually suffer any repercussions (besides electability).

Except you can?

Have you never taken personal notes on a piece of paper near your desk only to notice that you wrote down some work information on it elsewhere?

Granted TFA is not about an accident but you can accidentally take documents home just like you can accidentally walk into a SCIF with a wireless microphone (your cellphone).

By innocent I mean lawful, not benign, since it is unlawful to take them home.

No, you can't. You could accidentally take classified documents/information out of a SCIF, but not innocently. This is a strict liability offense, so it being an accident doesn't make you innocent.

If it weren't so, then every spy trying to exfiltrate documents would do it 'accidentally'. "Oops, I accidentally put the wrong documents into my bag. Oops, I accidentally left the bag on a bus where, completely unknown to me, that Russian agent with a diplomatic passport picked it up. Terrible mistake, but you can't prove I meant for this to happen." It doesn't work like that; even if it was a genuine accident that doesn't get you out of trouble.

I expect that an FBI agent knows very well that they cannot remove the documents from the secure facility, for any purpose. For me it raises the question of why they believed otherwise - did leadership or other people's behavior lead them to think it was ok?

Trump also allegedly misled officials about it and refused to return documents when requested.