FBI agents who ransacked former US President Donald Trump’s residence and private club in Mar-a-Lago last month found a document detailing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities. This was reported by the Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter. A fact – he adds – that underlines the concerns of US intelligence officials about classified material hidden in the Florida property.
Some of the seized documents detail top-secret US operations, considered so strictly confidential that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark. Only the president, some members of his cabinet, or level officials who come close to theirs could authorize other government officials to know the details of these programs, according to people familiar with the investigation and who have spoken out demanding to keep their own confidential. identity.
Highly classified transaction documents require special permissions that are granted on the basis of need-to-know criteria, not just top secret permissions. Records dealing with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmentalized facility, with a designated officer keeping a watchful eye on the station. This type of document emerged in Mar-a-Lago, and was stored there, more than 18 months after Trump left the White House.
After months of trying, the FBI has indeed recovered more than 300 confidential documents in Mar-a-Lago this year: 184 in a set of 15 boxes sent to the National Archives and Records Administration in January, another 38 delivered by a lawyer from Trump to investigators in June and more than 100 additional documents unearthed in a court-approved search on August 8. It was in the latter batch, sources cited by the newspaper said, that information about the foreign government was found.
Christopher Kise, Trump’s lawyer, denounced the leaks on the case, which – he said – “continue without respect for the trial or any regard for the truth. This does not serve the interests of justice”.