THREAD: Last night's report the FBI was looking for 'nuclear documents' could mean a couple differen

[demmiblue]

THREAD: Last night's report the FBI was looking for 'nuclear documents' could mean a couple different things—but there are some clues in the wider reporting that might help narrow it down. I wrote a book on nuclear war plans, so buckle up, here we go….

1) The US has, broadly speaking, four different categories of files that would count as 'nuclear documents,' each of which has some unique classification peculiarities, and all of which exist at the so-called "Above Top Secret" level because a simple TS clearance isn't enough....

'Nuclear docs' could refer to files on:

(a) nuclear weapon science and design;
(b) other countries' nuclear plans, both allies (UK) and adversaries (Russia, China, North Korea);
(c) details on our nuclear weapons and deployments;
(d) details on our nuclear command & control...

2) "Nuclear science and design" files are uniquely classified as what's known as "Restricted Data," a special security level run by the Dept of Energy and historically accessed through what's known as a "Q Clearance," a special background check and access protocol.

3) "TS/RD" files are "born classified," in that unlike other classified intelligence/science work, they are presumed to be highly classified from the moment of creation. Rather than opting-in to classification, you have to opt out.....

4) "Nuclear Command & Control" documents—think how the presidential Football operates and how launch procedures unfold—are known as NC2 and have their historically had their own classification known as "Extremely Sensitive Information" (ESI), which again requires special access…

5) The fact we've seen references around the Mar-a-Lago search to "Special Access Programs" (SAPs) tells us something too: SAPs are also a unique classification category that deals—usually—with the most sensitive operations and technical capabilities of intel/defense systems….

6) SAPs require you to be "read into" the program, e.g. that you have a specific "need to know," and the documents are carefully tracked to see who has read them and where they're stored.

7) Details of a foreign country's nuclear plans? That'd be a SAP *and* probably what's known as SCI, "Sensitive Compartmented Information," the designation usually for protecting "sources and methods."

Obviously how we know about other countries' secrets would be SCI.…

Interestingly, SAPs can also protect nuclear research and development, as well as presidential/military NC2 communication systems, which are known by their own special clearance YANKEE WHITE.

Did Trump walk out with info on cutting-edge R&D or presidential launch systems? …

8) SAPs and SCI are known by their own codenames, so, for instance, the long-ttime classification for our satellite reconnaissance was TALENT KEYHOLE, so documents protected by it would be labeled "TS/SCI TALENT KEYHOLE"….

9) tl;dr: All these classifications—SCI, SAP, ESI, RD—denote and protect the literally most sensitive documents in the entire US government.

The idea you'd walk out of a secure facility with them?

That's a literal federal crime—and one that the USG prosecutes harshly, often.

Link to tweet

[Kittycatkat]

1. Will the Feds know what documents are now MISSING from cache?

[FBaggins]

2. Sounds like someone trying to pimp his book

There are a dozen other things that "nuclear documents" could refer to.

They just don't lead to someone wanting to interview him about his book.

[Ocelot II]

4. Doesn't mean that he's wrong. The point is that whatever TFG took, it's something

that he had no business with. The important questions are:

What did he take?
Why did he take it?
What did he intend to do with it?
Why didn’t he give it back when demanded?
Did he promise it to someone?
Has he already sold it/disclosed it?
Who else knew he had it?

Sure smells like a violation of the Espionage Act…

[tulipsandroses]

3. Whatever it is. We need to find out why he took it

He can’t use the excuse that it got mixed up with his stuff. It’s not something you just keep on your desk. It would take a deliberate effort to get it.

[Ocelot II]

5. As I understand it, most materials of this sort are kept in a SCIF and are never

taken back to an ordinary office - they are carefully accounted for. Did TFG stuff them in his pants and smuggle them out?

[Jarqui]

6. Trump reportedly packed White House boxes in secret, took 'top secret' documents to Mar-a-Lago

https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/trump-reportedly-packed-white-house-053722130.html

But multiple people close to the former president told the Post that "Trump was very secretive about the packing of boxes that were retrieved from Mar-a-Lago last month, and did not let other aides — including some of his most senior advisers — look at them."

And "Trump has been loath to return the boxes of documents he took from the White House, despite repeated efforts by the National Archives to obtain them," starting last summer, when archivists noticed some high-profile records were missing, The New York Times reports. Eventually, "officials at the National Archives threatened to send a letter to Congress or the Department of Justice if he continued to withhold the boxes," and Trump started going through the files in December.

Article dated : February 11, 2022