Trump team copied documents and removed them from SCIF

[bathroommonkey76]

Link to tweet

WASHINGTON (AP) — In late November, a member of Donald Trump’s transition team approached national security officials in the Obama White House with a curious request: Could the incoming team get a copy of the classified CIA profile on Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States?

Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and NATO official, wanted the information for his boss, Michael Flynn, who had been tapped by Trump to serve as White House national security adviser. Billingslea knew Flynn would be speaking to Kislyak, according to two former Obama administration officials, and seemed concerned Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

To the Obama White House, Billingslea’s concerns were startling: a member of Trump’s own team suggesting the incoming Trump administration might be in over its head in dealing with an adversary.

The request now stands out as a warning signal for Obama officials who would soon see Flynn’s contacts with the Russian spiral into a controversy that would cost him his job and lead to a series of shocking accusations hurled by Trump against his predecessor’s administration.

Read more:

https://apnews.com/b109774705594ae887a86b337c444e6b/Trump-transition-raised-flags-about-Flynn-Russia-contacts

[applegrove]

1. Drip.

[Me.]

2. So In One Sense

It was the 45 transition team who outed Flynn

[Achilleaze]

3. KGOP traitors suck

Where they giving that information to the Russians?

The Republican Congress is failing America, refusing to lift even as much as a finger to stop the Russian infiltration and manipulatioN. It's a shameful dereliction of duty

[onit2day]

7. not much we can do about it besides what we're doing

resist, stay informed, challenge these bigots

[Tatiana]

4. Wasn't there an administration official supervising?

Someone who might have said, ummm this is a SCIF... you can't photocopy this material?

This gets stranger and stranger.

[jmowreader]

13. There are legitimate reasons to photocopy material in a SCIF

What there is NEVER a legitimate reason to do is exactly what Trump's team did: courier the photocopies from a secure facility to an unsecure one. I think the Trump people, who have a LOT of contacts within Russia, took that information straight to the Russian Ambassador.

[TeamPooka]

5. But her emails!

[BarbD]

6. Treason anyone?

This seems to be more than ineptitude. Isn't this flirting with treason?

[Maynar]

17. If by 'flirting you mean 'wallowing,' then yes

Yes it is.

And welcome to DU!

[haele]

21. We have a SCIF at work. If I did this,

I'd not only lose my clearance, I'd never be able to work in my field again. My family members or good friends would be flagged if they wanted to get any sort of Security Clearance.
And I'd be facing up to 5 years in a Federal facility just for my stupidity.
If you get the clearance to work in a SCIF, you have to get the training before you can walk through the door. There's no way you wouldn't know that you can't take material out without all sorts of paperwork, security processing, and packing. And you would probably have a minder if you weren't a Trusted Agent with years of background checks in your resume.
People need to go to jail. This is criminal stupidity.

Haele

[Ilsa]

8. I read the article and still don't

Understand how they were making copies of classified documents.

[Norbert9]

10. Yeah I didn't see anything to support the title either

[pnwmom]

11. What do you mean? This supports it:

The outgoing White House also became concerned about the Trump team’s handling of classified information. After learning that highly sensitive documents from a secure room at the transition’s Washington headquarters were being copied and removed from the facility, Obama’s national security team decided to only allow the transition officials to view some information at the White House, including documents on the government’s contingency plans for crises.

[Norbert9]

14. There is ambiguity here

Does "copied and removed" mean copied and then deleted or just removing the copies from the building once copied? There is a difference, though both appear illegal. The title implies deleting IMO.

[pnwmom]

15. I assumed the latter--but both would be highly illegal. People have gone to prison for these crimes.

[pnwmom]

12. A SCIF is a secure room for viewing classified documents. And the article says this:

The outgoing White House also became concerned about the Trump team’s handling of classified information. After learning that highly sensitive documents from a secure room at the transition’s Washington headquarters were being copied and removed from the facility, Obama’s national security team decided to only allow the transition officials to view some information at the White House, including documents on the government’s contingency plans for crises.

[jmowreader]

18. Not just "viewing" them

A SCIF (it means Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) is an extremely highly secured workspace. Most of the places people are calling SCIFs are not actually SCIFs. There's a standard for a real SCIF, and it's unbelievable - the gold in Fort Knox isn't secured that well.

This is a SCIF...

[pnwmom]

19. That may be a real SCIF, but it's not the only kind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_Compartmented_Information_Facility

Construction[edit]

Some entire buildings are SCIFs where all but the front foyer is secure. A SCIF can also be located in an air, ground or maritime vehicle, or can be established on a temporary basis at a specific site. The physical construction, access control, and alarming of the facility has been defined by various directives, including Director of Central Intelligence Directives (DCIDs) 1/21 and 6/9, and most recently (2011) by Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 705, signed by the Director of National Intelligence. ICD 705 is a three-page capstone document that implements Intelligence Community Standard (ICS) 705-1, ICS 705-2 and the Technical Specifications for Construction and Management of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities or "Tech Specs." The latest version of the Tech Specs was published in September 2015 (Version 1.3).

Computers operating within such a facility must conform to rules established by ICD 503. Computers and telecommunication equipment within must conform to TEMPEST emanations specification as directed by a Certified TEMPEST Technical Authority (CTTA).

[SunSeeker]

9. Wow

[L. Coyote]

16. K & R

[kentuck]

20. The transition team was making copies of sensitive information and carrying it out?

They did not behave as innocent individuals...