During its search at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI found a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, according to the Washington Post.
The WaPo report cited unnamed sources and did not identify the foreign government named in the latest report on Tuesday, nor where the document was found, but that it was found in the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago in August.
Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or anear-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive details of an ongoing investigation.
WaPo
These types of highly classified documents require special clearances on a need-to-know basis, not just top-secret clearance. Some special-access programs can have as few as a couple dozen government personnel authorized to know of an operation’s existence. These types of records are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location.
But this type of document was found at a country club in Florida with uncertain security, more than 18 months after Trump left the White House.
The Trump Camp Response
Christopher Kise, the latest addition to the Trump team of attorneys, decried leaks in the case.
Kise said that leaks “continue with no respect for the process nor any regard for the real truth. This does not serve well the interests of justice.”
“Moreover, the damage to public confidence in the integrity of the system simply cannot be underestimated. The responsible course of action here would be for someone — anyone — in the Government to exercise leadership and control. The Court has provided a sensible path forward which does not include the selective leak of unverifiable and misleading information. There is no reason to deviate from that path if the goal is, as it should be, to find a rational solution to document storage issues which have needlessly spiraled out of control.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is conducting a risk assessment, to determine how much potential harm was posed by the removal from government custody of hundreds of classified documents.
