Bombshell report on leaked information from FBI's Mar-a-Lago search last month
MIAMI - A bombshell Washington Post report reveals that FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate last month found a document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.
The report did not identify the foreign government named in the document.
The Post's report highlights the concerns of U.S. intelligence officials about classified material that Trump kept in the home.
"I think it's such a sensitive area that there are categories and subcategories of that kind of information. Some of it is essentially Department of Defense information that falls under the classified system of law. And obviously, when you talk about special access and talk about the nuclear capability with a foreign military agency, those are types of things that the government in no way wants spread around," said Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper.
The Post also reported that some of the seized documents detailed top-secret U.S. operations that are so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some cabinet members, or a near-cabinet-level official could authorize other officials to know the details.
"So some of the FBI agents who were on the scene in Mar-a-Lago, they didn't even have the clearance that would allow them to look at these documents," said Cooper.
"Correct and not just the agents," replied Barrett. "Some of the federal prosecutors involved in this matter also didn't automatically have the clearance to look at some of these materials."
Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday morning to blast the search, saying in part,"not only did the FBI steal my passports in the FBI Raid and Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago, but it has just been learned through court filings that they also improperly took my complete and highly confidential medical file and history, with all the bells and whistles."
The former president also claimed they took his personal tax records and lawyer/client privileged information.
Former federal prosecutor David Weinstein raised questions regarding this leak of information.
"The fact that the release exits and the fact that the public is now aware of this, (it) almost gravitates towards what the judge, in this case, has been saying and that is she wants to ensure that nothing that has been found there leaks out," he said.
Weinstein explained that only people with a top-level security clearance would have access to this material.
"These documents are stored in something called the SCIF, the Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility. It's under lock and key. You have to log in, you have to log out, there are passcodes," he said.
Weinstein said the investigation will continue to move forward and he expects by end of the year we will have more clarity on if any charges will be filed.
"It appears that this investigation has located both subjects and targets and those would include, at this point in time certainly, the former president and those people around him," he said.
According to the Washington Post, the FBI has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago this year.
