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Another leak: Wa-Po was told Trump docs involved ‘nuclear secrets’ of other nations, not America

September 7, 2022 | | Print Article

Former President Donald Trump reportedly did have documents related to “nuclear secrets” stashed away at his Mar-a-Lago home.

However, new reporting by The Washington Post reveals that the documents pertained to the “nuclear secrets” of other nations, not America.

Moreover, the “documents” were, in fact, just one document.

“A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month,” the Post reported Tuesday, citing anonymous intelligence officials.

“These people did not identify the foreign government in question, say where at Mar-a-Lago the document was found or offer additional details about one of the Justice Department’s most sensitive national security investigations.”

The Post’s latest reporting comes roughly a month after the paper ran a report announcing that “[c]lassified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence.”

That report provoked outrage from leftists who automatically assumed that the “documents” pertained to America’s nuclear weapons. Some even speculated that Trump had America’s nuclear codes in hand and was readying to sell them to Saudi Arabia (*Language warning):

The former president responded to all the hubbub at the time by taking to his social media network, Truth Social, to complain that the reporting was just another “hoax.”

“Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved,” he wrote.

Responding to the latest reporting, one of the president’s attorneys complained specifically about intelligence officials leaking their findings to the Post and other establishment media outlets.

Lawyer Christopher Kise said that the leaks demonstrate “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,” he continued.

“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.”

Assuming the Post’s reporting is accurate, it now appears this isn’t just a “hoax,” though by the same token, it’s not nearly as troubling as it’d initially seemed a month ago. At least not the part about nuclear weapons.

The Post’s reporting continues by highlighting some of the other “documents” that were “seized” and noting that they were “so closely guarded [in the government] that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them.”

Speaking on CNN late Tuesday, one of the writers of the report, Devlin Barrett, explained that these documents were supposed to have been protected by the Special Access Programs (SAPs) security protocol.

“[S]ome of the SAP material that was seized was so close-hold that only the president, some Cabinet secretaries and near Cabinet-like officials were authorized to share or allow other people in the government to see that kind of information,” he said.

“So extremely close-hold, extremely tightly held and there was an allusion to this and one of the court filings. If you remember, one of the filings said that even the investigators who recovered the material, some of them weren’t — even though there were counterintelligence agents — some of them weren’t authorized to review some of the documents when they first found them.”

“You’re talking about documents that should be stored in a SCIF. It’s a government acronym for a very secure room, and should have someone who is designated — a government official designated to keep very close tabs on those kinds of documents,” he continued.

“That’s another cause for concern, because obviously, when they conducted this search, they looked in the storage room, they looked in the former president’s office. And you know, those aren’t nearly the kinds of places with the kinds of security for documents like that.”

As of Wednesday morning, the former president had not yet personally responded to the latest reporting.

Vivek Saxena
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