Former President Trump reportedly kept top-secret documents detailing Iran’s missile program and U.S. spying on China stashed at his Florida resort home.
The FBI seized the super-sensitive documents along with about 100 classified documents in an Aug. 8 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, the Washington Post reported Friday.
The report called the classified documents some of the government’s most closely held secrets, mostly because they reveal details about U.S. intelligence gathering and could be used to undermine national security.
Previous reports said Trump also had a third document that describes a foreign nation’s nuclear capability, another document that is not supposed to be seen by anyone without authorization, let alone stored in a waterfront club with significant security shortcomings.
“Having that stuff in a storeroom at Mar-a-Lago was unbelievably reckless and put America’s security at risk,” Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director, told CNN.
If China or Iran obtained access to the documents held by Trump, they could retaliate against the U.S. or successfully protect their secrets from future U.S. intelligence efforts.
Federal prosecutors are investigating if Trump or anyone else violated laws barring mishandling of classified documents, the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice.
Trump denies wrongdoing and falsely insists the documents belong to him.
The feds say Trump improperly took more than 10,000 government documents with him when he left office in 2021.
He defied requests to return the documents and even a subpoena for their return before getting a federal judge to approve the search of Mar-a-Lago, which turned up a remarkable trove of documents.
At least one Trump employee has reportedly told investigators that he moved boxes of documents at Trump’s direction from a storage room to the ex-president’s residence after getting slapped with the subpoena. If true, that would amount to strong evidence of obstruction.
