It got worse
Trump didn’t just steal nuclear secrets
He also stole the names & payroll records of our SPIES
The only reason why he would take this intel is to sell it to our enemies
The Saudi-funded LIV tournament & Kushner’s $2 billion from Mohammed Bone Saw look more damning by the day
Our enemies would risk the lives of their own spies to acquire this intel
This isn’t some boring archival document that Trump can telepathically declassify in his little noggin
This scumbag has endangered the lives of those in our intelligence community
Newsweek reports that the documents Trump stole include payroll records for US spies. Exactly the kind of thing for which Putin or Saudi Arabia would pay the Trump family billions. Was there a bidding war the Saudis won with their $2 billion to Jared?
In pursuing the unprecedented search of Donald Trump's residence on Monday, the FBI was seeking to retrieve Top Secret and "compartmented" documents dealing with intelligence "sources and methods," two federal government sources tell Newsweek—documents with the potential to reveal U.S. intelligence sources, including human sources on the American government payroll.
This greatly complicates any public discussion of the documents or any substantiation of Trump's potential violation of U.S. law. The sources, who were briefed on the investigation, requested anonymity in order to discuss sensitive information.
"Compartmented" is a specific term meaning "classified information concerning or derived from intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes, which is required to be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director of National Intelligence." It includes a variety of different access categories—for example, human, intercept, satellite sources—each of which limits how many people can know the nature of the compartment. One of the government sources says that "special access program" information was involved in the Mar-a-Lago case, a further category of information limited to an even smaller group of people.
Intelligence sources familiar with the classification system and the investigation say that neither the search warrant nor the inventory, if unsealed, will likely answer most people's questions about whether the search was necessary.
"In order to prove that this was a matter of national security and essential to be done in this way, some detail on what Trump was keeping will have to be revealed," one intelligence officer, granted anonymity to speak about an ongoing investigation, tells Newsweek. "That might be difficult for the government precisely because of the sensitivity of the documents."
Under normal circumstances, investigators write a detailed list of all the materials taken from a person or property that is searched, filing a copy of that inventory with the court that approved the search warrant. But in the case of classified documents, the inventory list might be intentionally vague: for example, "ten documents, numbered 1 through 10, consisting of 65 pages, stamped Top Secret and above." Since the assumption is that the search warrant might become public, neither the inventory nor the search warrant would include any classified information.
The former president does not have authority to declassify such documents, intelligence sources say, because they are classified under statute rather than by executive order. Trump's possession of those documents and the fact that he was secreting them away came to light in the course of a multi-month federal government investigation that focused on the status of presidential records taken from the White House.
On Monday morning, FBI agents and technicians arrived at Donald Trump's Florida residence and presented the former president's attorneys a search warrant to retrieve highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. According to Trump spokespeople, the FBI investigators were focused on three rooms at the residence. Trump said that the FBI had broken into at least one safe of his, presumably in the Trump office or bedroom where it was found.
The information as to the whereabouts of the documents, Newsweek previously reported, came from a confidential human source, presumably someone inside the Trump camp. While not acknowledging any details of the investigation, on Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that the Justice Department was asking that the search warrant and the inventory of property taken from Mar-a-Lago be released by the court. That request has to be agreed to—officially, not just in public statements—by Donald Trump.
Given the political firestorm that the search at Mar-a-Lago provoked, questions about the documents are of critical importance. If they were merely "routine," as Trump insists, then the search will be seen as politically motivated. The fury might be quelled if the documents are indeed revealed to be highly classified and sensitive, and the Justice Department can prove that the former president was holding onto them with no intention of giving them back. The public might conclude that the search was valid and necessary.
The road to the search at Mar-a-Lago began 18 months ago in the transition from the Trump to the Biden administration. In inventorying presidential records, the National Archives and Records Administration concluded that there were additional documents that were in Donald Trump's possession that were "presidential records" and not personal papers and thus needed to be returned to the Archives.
Months of negotiations followed, and in January 2022, 15 boxes of such boxes were turned over to the Archives. That collection led to further suspicions that the Trump camp still possessed more. Federal investigators began interviewing Trump White House and Mar-a-Lago staffers to determine what was moved. Those interviews, and a broader investigation overseen by a U.S. Attorney resulted in a grand jury subpoena served on Trump in late May to produce specific documents.
According to John Soloman, a journalist with Just the News who has also served as one of Donald Trump's liaisons to the National Archives, the subpoena requested any remaining documents Trump possessed with any classification markings, even if they involved photos of foreign leaders, correspondence or mementos from his presidency.
On June 3, three FBI special agents and a senior Justice Department official visited Mar-a-Lago to discuss any additional documents in response to the subpoena. The visiting officials were shown the basement storage room where White House records were stored, and in fulfillment of the subpoena, left with "a small number of documents," according to Soloman. The documents were classified as Top Secret and were compartmented, according to people familiar with the investigation. Trump and his spokespeople say the visit was cordial and that the Trump camp fully cooperated.
After the June visit, according to the Trump camp, communications with the investigators ceased until agents showed up on Monday to execute the search warrant. According to people familiar with the search, the decision to escalate the matter to a surprise search came because investigators concluded that additional documents were at Mar-a-Lago—documents so sensitive, they had to be retrieved in order to protect national security.
The search warrant was approved by the Florida magistrate on Friday, August 5, and three days later, the FBI showed up at Mar-a-Lago to execute the search. Some 12 additional boxes of records were hauled away. The FBI inventoried what was taken and left behind a two-page inventory with Trump's lawyers.
In the aftermath of the search, the Trump camp insists that President Trump had the right to declassify information, and thus none of the records were classified. Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist who served in intelligence and defense positions in the administration (and who also identifies himself as one of Donald Trump's representatives to the National Archives), told the Just The News podcast that Trump was the "ultimate arbiter" of the classification of a document and thus there could be no wrongdoing.
That characterization is incorrect, experts say, because documents that are covered by statute, and not classified under presidential executive order, cannot be classified or declassified by the president. That includes nuclear secrets (under the Atomic Energy Act) and documents that might identify CIA case officers or agents (under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982). The Washington Post has reported that the documents sought at Mar-a-Lago related to nuclear weapons.
That law labels as a CIA sources "an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency."
Bill Leonard, who as head of the Information Security Oversight Office for six years in the Bush administration and oversaw this system, makes a clear distinction between information that is classified pursuant to the President's Article Two constitutional authority as commander-in-chief and those that are classified by statute, such as nuclear secrets and intelligence sources and methods regarding human agents. "That sort of information and other sensitive intelligence sources and methods are protected pursuant to law, not necessarily protected pursuant to the president's unilateral classification authority," Leonard told Grid this week. "So even an incumbent president does not have total, unfettered authority to declare information unclassified at will. Certainly, a former president has no authority to declassify any sort of information."
Trump stole payroll records of US Spies. This is information that Saudi Arabia and Russia would, or may have already paid “billions” for.
This brings Kusner’s 2 billion dollar investment from the Saudis into play in a big way.
Buckle Up. #FreshResists
Documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago could include names of CIA sources in Moscow - NBC News
bad time to remind tfg *routinely* burned intel sources?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two U.S. officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump’s short tenure in office.
The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.
The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect.
“The story that came out tonight as reported is false,” H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.
“At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known...I was in the room. It didn’t happen,” he said.
Russia’s foreign ministry said reports that Trump had revealed highly classified information were “fake”, according to the Interfax news agency.
The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false.
Still, the news triggered concern in Congress.
The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump’s conduct “dangerous” and “reckless”.
Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations “very, very troubling” if true.
“Obviously, they’re in a downward spiral right now and they’ve got to come to grips with all that’s happening,” he said of the White House.
SECRET COMPARTMENT
The latest controversy came as Trump’s administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified “Top Secret” and held in a secure “compartment” to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.
After Trump’s disclosure of the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.
While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the U.S. officials said.
Since taking office in January, Trump has careened from controversy to controversy, complaining on the first day about news coverage of his inauguration crowds; charging his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, with wiretapping; and just last week firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government.
Trump, a Republican who has called allegations of links between his campaign team and Russia a “total scam,” sharply criticized his 2016 election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information as secretary of state, when she used a private email server.
The FBI concluded that no criminal charges against Clinton were warranted, but Comey said she and her colleagues had been “careless” with classified information.
‘NO FILTER’
In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on “great intel every day,” an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.
Some U.S. officials have told Reuters they have been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Trump.
One official, who requested anonymity to discuss dealing with the president, said last month: “He has no filter; it’s in one ear and out the mouth.”
One of the officials with knowledge of Trump’s meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure “particularly unfortunate,” as the President prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State.
Trump’s first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 NATO meeting in Brussels attended by other important U.S. allies. He also has stops planned in Israel and the Vatican.
The president’s trip and latest uproar over his meeting with Russian officials come amid rumors that he might shake-up his senior staff in a bid to refocus his administration.
Additional reporting by David Alexander, Mark Hosenball, Susan Cornwell, Ayesha Rascoe and Steve Holland; Editing by Kieran Murray and Bill Tarrant, Ralph Boulton Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Drumpf burned intel source during 2017's Oval Office Kremlin Confab; what did he get in return? how much, and to whom?
The US decided to extract a top-secret source from Russia after President Donald Trump revealed classified information to two Russian officials in 2017, CNN reported on Monday.
A person directly involved with the discussions told the outlet the US was concerned that Trump and his administration routinely mishandled classified intelligence and that their actions could expose the covert source as a spy within the Russian government.
The New York Times reported that the asset was a mid-level Russian official the CIA had cultivated decades ago who had rapidly moved up through the ranks of the Russian government. Eventually, the report said, the source became invaluable after landing "an influential position" that included access to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But as the US learned the extent to which Russia was interfering in the 2016 election, and as the media reported on it and began to examine the CIA's sources in the Kremlin, US officials reportedly worried about the source's safety and decided to offer to extract the person in late 2016, before Trump took office. The spy apparently refused, but officials' concerns were compounded when, in May 2017, Trump disclosed top-secret intelligence to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting.
Trump's disclosure was not specifically about the Russian spy. But his disregard of strict intelligence-sharing rules to protect highly placed sources "prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk" that the source in Russia would be exposed, CNN reported.
At the Oval Office meeting, which took place one day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, the president is said to have boasted to the Russians that firing "nut job" Comey had taken "great pressure" off him. Comey had been spearheading the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
Trump then went on to share with Lavrov and Kislyak intelligence connected to the Islamic State in Syria. The information came from Israel, which had not given the US permission to share it with the Russians because it could have compromised an Israeli source in the region.
The report said that Mike Pompeo, the CIA director at the time, also told other senior Trump administration officials after the meeting that too much information was coming out regarding the US asset in Russia.
This is not the first time national-security veterans have expressed concerns that Trump's actions could reveal sensitive information about US intelligence-gathering processes and human sources working abroad.
Late last month, the president's tweet about US military information he received during a classified intelligence briefing earlier that day immediately set off alarm bells because it included a satellite photo of an Iranian launchpad that was of a much higher resolution and better quality than the commercial satellite images of the site that were publicly available.
It also contained markers indicating that it was taken by USA-224, one of the US's most secretive spy satellites.
Intelligence veterans said the president's tweet would be a gold mine for hostile foreign powers.
"One doesn't use intel for the purposes of taunting. The Russians and the Chinese will be very happy to study this," Robert Deitz, a former top lawyer at the CIA and the National Security Agency, told Insider.
Last year, Trump also made the unusual decision to authorize the declassification of a highly controversial memo about the origins of the Russia investigation by Devin Nunes, then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, for political purposes.
The memo and its release sparked a firestorm on Capitol Hill and within the intelligence community. Top intelligence officials met multiple times with senior White House staff to urge against releasing the document for fear that it could expose sources and methods.
The Justice Department and the FBI also took the extraordinary step of releasing statements cautioning against its release by the House Intelligence Committee without giving officials enough time to review it.
there's Wiki page for Yam Tits' disclosure of classified intel bc of course there is tfg's established pattern-of-behavior brings us full-circle to today's stolen-boxes scandal
Lots of quid pro quo. Barrack trial in Sept will reveal lot of bad hombres. He's flipped.Barrack connects to Deripaska (homes were raided),Putin, Flynn,Jared,UAE,MSB (said Jared was in his hip pocket),Marshall Plan, nuclear tech & reactors,(Prince military as guards). Article&
Is Barrack flipping? Flynn-backed plan to transfer nuclear tech to Saudis may have broken laws, say whistleblowers Investigators fear President Trump is still considering the plan, which was pushed by Flynn and Trump friend Tom Barrack.
Likely. He's been indicted & trial set for Sept. Barrack connects to Deripaska (houses were raided), Putin & Blavatnik & thereby Mitch, Graham & others. Barrack demanded docs for his trial & #DOJ couldn't find them in Archives, so searched MAL?
Assuming this, and the nuclear information reporting are accurate, it would indicate at least some portion of the documents were taken purely for their monetary value and/or their ability to do grave damage to national security if they were released/obtained by an adversary.
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