Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago
Source: New York Times
The initial batch of documents retrieved by the National Archives from former President Donald J. Trump in January included more than 150 marked as classified, a number that ignited intense concern at the Justice Department and helped trigger the criminal investigation that led F.B.I. agents to swoop into Mar-a-Lago this month seeking to recover more, multiple people briefed on the matter said. In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office, the people said: that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Mr. Trumps aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the F.B.I.
in the search this month. The previously unreported volume of the sensitive material found in the former presidents possession in January helps explain why the Justice Department moved so urgently to hunt down any further classified materials he might have. And the extent to which such a large number of highly sensitive documents remained at Mar-a-Lago for months, even as the department sought the return of all material that should have been left in government custody when Mr. Trump left office, suggested to officials that the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling it, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both.
The specific nature of the sensitive material that Mr. Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Mr. Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. spanning a variety of topics of national security interest, a person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over. The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.
Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June. At the conclusion of the search this month, officials left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information. The Justice Department investigation is continuing, suggesting that officials are not certain whether they have recovered all the presidential records that Mr. Trump took with him from the White House.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-documents.html
No paywall link
sheshe2
(83,633 posts)This is some huge shit going down.
Fiendish Thingy
(15,544 posts)Proof of knowledge and intent, right there.
moniss
(4,156 posts)let him go through the boxes. Gee I wonder what's the likelihood of him pulling some more classified documents out from there and squirreling them away somewhere else? Seems like being naive on the part of the "investigators" in January.
BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)so they should know what is missing from their tracking of the disposition of the material and whether it had been accounted for.
essaynnc
(799 posts)How does the chain of custody work for top top secret documents? I cannot imagine anyone associated with the White House in any way shape or form would let trump get his paws on them Much less be able to spirit them out of the White House at his discretion.
This isn't like the library where you go request a book and signed it out for 3 weeks! !!!
BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)would probably had the authority to access the materials.
In general, routine chain of custody has a procedure and process within any federal agency that requires it for evidence collection and/or information management (from my experience before retiring from a federal agency with regulatory authority), so anything related to national security would have those highest levels of information access and document control.
I remember early on during Obama's first term when an IRS employee had been fired for actually accessing and "reading/reviewing" various tax filings in IRS's data system, without those returns being part of their assigned workload. I.,e., the system had an access log for who logged in when, and what was accessed.
The Internal Revenue takes accessing taxpayer databases without an official business purpose seriously. The first offense canand doeslead to removal. This 13-year federal employee was fired and the court upholds the removal.
By Susan McGuire Smith July 30, 2009 6:22 AM
Yet another employee of the Internal Revenue Service has learned the hard way that the agency has no tolerance for its employees accessing taxpayer databases without an official business purpose. (McLeod v. Department of the Treasury, C.A.F.C. No. 2008-3335 (nonprecedential), 6/17/09)
In this latest case, a Tax Examining Technician with a good 13-year employment record nevertheless was fired for accessing the agencys taxpayer database without official reason or authorization on 15 separate occasions over several years. (Opinion p. 2)
The database is IDRS, the Integrated Data Retrieval System. IRS refers to the offense as UNAX, unauthorized access and inspection of taxpayer records. The agency demonstrated that McLeod went to the annual agency training sessions that outline the requirements and the seriousness of the offense.
The courts characterization that the offense is treated very seriously by the IRS is an understatement since the agencys table of penalties calls for removal on the first offense unless the individual taxpayer has given consent. (p. 2)
(snip)
https://www.fedsmith.com/2009/07/30/removal-13year-employee-upheld-by-court/
Similarly, there was a GAO investigation in the above with a report that released a few months ago -
Jory Heckman@jheckmanWFED
May 19, 2022 5:27 pm
Several hundred IRS employees over the past decade violated the agencys policies around unauthorized access to sensitive taxpayer information.
Sensitive taxpayer information obtained by a news outlet last year led the Government Accountability Office, at a senators request, to conduct such a review.
GAO, in its report, found that the IRS completed nearly 1,700 investigations of alleged willful unauthorized access of tax data by employees between fiscal 2012 and 2021.
Of those investigations, the IRS determined that in 462 cases 27% of cases the employee in question violated the agencys policy on unauthorized access to taxpayer records.
(snip)
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/agency-oversight/2022/05/hundreds-of-irs-employees-wrongfully-accessed-taxpayer-information-over-last-10-years/
And I know there are different levels of what is considered "Sensitive" info which the tax returns would be and that is down on the lower levels when compared to info that is "Classified/Top Secret".
So I would speculate that there are multiple national security database systems that are NOT connected anywhere on the internet, and house this info, and those classified systems are encrypted, biometrically accessed (whether via an access card or literal biometric scan), and have an extraordinary amount of logging of activity for them.
It's possible that those types of documents were "watermarked" on the electronic file as "Classified" / "Top Secret" in the database itself so when printed, they would have the watermark already on them (including any other required ancillary tracking number) vs printing out a document and manually stamping it with an ink stamp.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,936 posts)BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)They have a record of who originally accessed the info and when, and what happened with the custody of that info will be on that person who had last access to justify under questioning, what the reasons were and any potential reckless handling of the document after it was in that person's possession. It's definitely a deterrent.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,936 posts)BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)Renew Deal
(81,843 posts)Did he have clearance to do so at that point? And are there any mandatory reporting laws that could have been broken?
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,936 posts)Fiendish Thingy
(15,544 posts)And, even if the archives hadnt requested the records, yes, it would have been a crime to access records he didnt have clearance to see.
Problem is, this report is attributed to anonymous sources, and you cant use that as evidence in court- someone would have to go on the record.
Novara
(5,817 posts)And they identified some of the highest classification level in the boxes they seized a couple of weeks ago. That means he decided to NOT return material he knew to be illegally held and knew was not secure.
Anybody else doing this would be already in federal custody.
I suspect it also means he was looking for the highest bidder to sell the most classified stuff.
Incredibly Damning: Ex-FBI General Counsel Declares Mar-a-Lago Classified Docs Reveal a Substantial Criminal Case Against Trump
snip............
The context of the conversation includes several new and related stories that broke on Monday. Pro-Trump media figure John Solomon published a memo from the National Archives to Trump in which he breathlessly implicated the Biden White House being involved politically. The memo reveals standard operating procedure and is far from exculpatory of the former president.
Later on Monday evening, The New York Times reported that roughly 300 classified documents had been retrieved from the Mar-a-Lago raid that was or wasnt a raid, depending on ones definition. There was also former President Trumps legal team filing for a special master to review documents taken so he could have personal information returned.
Weissman said of Mondays headlines, there was a lot of news; none of it was good for the president. He then revealed that The New York Times reporting I found most interesting because of one particular sentence, which is that several sources said that when the archives were trying to get documents back, it was the former president, Donald Trump, who personally reviewed the boxes in deciding what to return. That means he also decided what not to return:
oldsoftie
(12,485 posts)these things have a tendency to DRAG out for so long. We need to know how deep his corruption goes & how dangerous it was
Irish_Dem
(46,422 posts)Classified documents.
dchill
(38,432 posts)oldsoftie
(12,485 posts)They simply can't say NOTHING because a lot of people will just dismiss it as partisanship.
Irish_Dem
(46,422 posts)The excuse that the info is classified is now totally ridiculous.
The entire world had access to those documents.
But the American public is supposed to remain in the dark?
oldsoftie
(12,485 posts)Knowing trump it could LITERALLY be anything.
Irish_Dem
(46,422 posts)But this is one time that the truth has to come out, at least a big chunk of it.
I agree totally.
Jarqui
(10,119 posts)Documents that should have been marked classified but since Trump doesn't follow the rules, they were not.
Another in a long list of reasons he should never set foot in the White House or any public office again - unless of course, he wants to deem a prison cell his office of the foreseeable future.
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)Actually, a smart way to get out of running guess he realizes his gravy train of $$ might run out in Nov.
Jarqui
(10,119 posts)So that they can protect him from the courts until he runs?
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)oldsoftie
(12,485 posts)Because as Mitch says; paraphrasing,"Some of our candidates SUCK"
chowder66
(9,045 posts)Who was coming and going at Mar-a-lago?
orangecrush
(19,384 posts)Would that get you or me?
royable
(1,263 posts)things like "discard if Flynn finds something better," "not yet scanned," "scanned," "emailed to Vlad" and "save for kompromat."
Not quite unfortunately.
Rhiannon12866
(204,593 posts)And that's also Lawrence O'Donnell's lead story tonight!
NYT: Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents At Mar-a-Lago - All In - MSNBC
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017760824
Congressman Eric Swalwell reacts to the New York Times reporting that Trump had more than 300 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago: Thats a lot. - Aired on 08/22/2022.
Dyedinthewoolliberal
(15,543 posts)but I have to say, I'm kind of surprised outgoing Presidents aren't 'audited' as they leave. You know when a person leaves a job, voluntarily or otherwise, someone is usually assigned to help you gather your belongings and collect what belongs to the employer. You know, like CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS!!!
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)That's what trump stole and stomped to death - the honor system
NJCher
(35,616 posts)is rather mild.
I'd call them grievous, stab-in-the-heart, unconscionable, ignorant, vile, anti-American, egregious, outrageous, treasonous acts.
Rhiannon12866
(204,593 posts)In the National Archives and which can be released to the outgoing president's future presidential library. Guess who will never have one??
Martin68
(22,755 posts)Complacency is our enemy. The rule of law is our friend.
Grins
(7,188 posts)So he KNEW he lost the election and was on his way out. Everything he did after that - was sedition.
Ford_Prefect
(7,867 posts)the truth. He is an evil man but he is also clever in his way. He knew what he was doing every step of the way and still does.
This should be enough to get him arrested. Although no one I can see thus far has the brass to do it. It should be enough for a straight forward charge hold him over for for arraignment. But as with other very rich people he will have a lawyer answer the summons and thus avoid even brief incarceration. He is very much more dangerous than we have considered up to now. He should be taken off the street and held in jail like Epstein was.
He's been using his position to blind people to his crimes all along, as others before me have said.
Jarqui
(10,119 posts)A bunch were marked classified after the fact (as a number of Trump's unclassified documents will)
Quantitatively, for 18 months, Trump had more than 300 classified documents - 100 times the classified documents Hillary did - in a room with a door lock that was deemed insufficient being accessed by people with little to no security clearance.
Shouldn't we be hearing more than 100 times the screaming from Republicans than we did in 2016?
Where are the Republican "Lock him up!" chants?
Rhetorical question answered by their hypocrisy.
padah513
(2,494 posts)They literally freaked out over Hillary's emails. 24/7 nonstop news coverage and yet it feels like Trump is going to get the 'Meh' treatment. He may not but I don't see the outrage yet. 300+ documents jeez.
Novara
(5,817 posts)This sentence:
is belied by this:
Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June.
That doesn't imply urgency to me. January to June to August. Months later a grand jury was convened. They knew he still had material in JUNE. To me, "urgency" would have meant an immediate seizure of the materials in June.
Regardless, the motherfucker should be treated just like any other criminal caught stealing DOZENS of boxes full of HUNDREDS of classified documents. LOCK HIM UP.
BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)They are being tracked, as part of required Records Management procedures, by NARA (National Archives and Records Administration).
So the DOJ investigators need to do a lot of back and forth with NARA to determine the whats and wherefores, and NARA itself has had to do deep dives with the agencies/departments that "owned" those documents (e.g., DOD, DHS, DOE, State, CIA, etc.).
Novara
(5,817 posts)My gripe with the NYT is labeling this as urgent when for all intents and purposes it isn't. It really can't be. Figuring out what was missing obviously takes time, and that doesn't convey a sense of urgency.
He likely has material stashed in other places as well. I'm guessing it will be a lot longer before we see search warrants for other locations, if we even see them.
BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)but it is "urgent" in the sense that the longer any still-unrecovered stuff might be out there, the more risk the info loss is to the agencies/departments that they belong to, and any particular U.S. policy posture that we have based on them.
I expect stuff may be scattered to the wind - including Bedminister and oa location that isn't mentioned much if at all, but is closest - Sterling.
It's going to take years to unwind this mess.
Novara
(5,817 posts)Not to mention other cases of outright criminality.
He's certainly had the documents long enough to have sold off some of them, and I don't doubt that he moved some to other locations.
BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)and I say this as a former Supervisor and Manager - "he" is not doing any of this. His "people" (staff, children, aides, etc) were/are "doing" and he either "gave the order" or let them make the decisions about what would be beneficial to "have". And he had a place to "store it" for use. As has been claimed over and over - "he doesn't read". Someone else does and carries out his "orders" based on what the info was and what benefit it could bring.
This is why this whole thing screams RICO.
Whether someone is a CEO of a multinational corporation or the President of the U.S., they "delegate to others", except for some functions and special interests. I.e., they are not micromanaging at that level but ARE controlling the flow.
So all those who were blurting out "Fifth!" "Fifth!" "Fifth" for their J6 testimony (and probably doing the same or will do the same for any grand jury) would be the ones under fire for misuse of government documents.
I am particularly concerned with Flynn, even with his tenure there having been short, because he would have known what types of documents to ask for. And I think that obsession with "the generals" was part of that with the other ones who were brought in through the revolving door (e.g., H.R. McMaster and John Kelly). And when that didn't work out as well, you had people like Mulvaney and Bolton brought in now that they had a handle on the "what was available to even ask for" piece (thanks to "the generals" ).
Novara
(5,817 posts)He never does anything for himself and he is notoriously incurious. These reports of him going through the boxes in late 2021 just don't ring true to me at all. He likely had someone else going through them to identify what was most lucrative for future sale of America's classified information.
He has diabolically clever minions who are perfectly capable of identifying "the good stuff." And they likely had no security clearance either. I can't even imagine the charge he'd face for ordering unqualified people with no security clearance to rifle through boxes of America's top secrets to identify what he could sell.
And yet he's walking free. Every day that more details come out and he still breathes free air pisses me off more and more.
BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)Jared Kushner was rejected for a top-secret clearance by two career security specialists, but their supervisor overruled them and approved him, sources say.
Jan. 24, 2019, 8:14 PM EST / Updated Jan. 24, 2019, 10:17 PM EST
By Laura Strickler, Ken Dilanian and Peter Alexander
WASHINGTON Jared Kushner's application for a top-secret clearance was rejected by two career White House security specialists after an FBI background check raised concerns about potential foreign influence on him but their supervisor overruled the recommendation and approved the clearance, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. The official, Carl Kline, is a former Pentagon employee who was installed as director of the personnel security office in the Executive Office of the President in May 2017.
Kushner's was one of at least 30 cases in which Kline overruled career security experts and approved a top-secret clearance for incoming Trump officials despite unfavorable information, the two sources said. They said the number of rejections that were overruled was unprecedented it had happened only once in the three years preceding Kline's arrival. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information, said the Trump White House attracted many people with untraditional backgrounds who had complicated financial and personal histories, some of which raised red flags.
Kushner's FBI background check identified questions about his family's business, his foreign contacts, his foreign travel and meetings he had during the campaign, the sources said, declining to be more specific. The White House office only determines eligibility for secret and top-secret clearances. As a very senior official, Kushner was seeking an even higher designation that would grant him access to what is known as "sensitive compartmented information," or SCI. That material makes up the government's most sensitive secrets, including transcripts of intercepted foreign communications, CIA source reporting and other intelligence seemingly important for Kushner, whose job portfolio covers the Mideast and Mexico.
The CIA is the agency that decides whether to grant SCI clearance to senior White House officials after conducting a further background check. After Kline overruled the White House security specialists and recommended Kushner for a top-secret clearance, Kushner's file then went to the CIA for a ruling on SCI. After reviewing the file, CIA officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Top-secret information is defined as material that would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security if disclosed to adversaries.
(snip)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/officials-rejected-jared-kushner-top-secret-security-clearance-were-overruled-n962221
Also this in the same OP - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2955174
By William M. Arkin On 8/10/22 at 10:03 AM EDT
The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek. The officials, who have direct knowledge of the FBI's deliberations and were granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters, said the raid of Donald Trump's Florida residence was deliberately timed to occur when the former president was away.
FBI decision-makers in Washington and Miami thought that denying the former president a photo opportunity or a platform from which to grandstand (or to attempt to thwart the raid) would lower the profile of the event, says one of the sources, a senior Justice Department official who is a 30-year veteran of the FBI. The effort to keep the raid low-key failed: instead, it prompted a furious response from GOP leaders and Trump supporters. "What a spectacular backfire," says the Justice official.
"I know that there is much speculation out there that this is political persecution, but it is really the best and the worst of the bureaucracy in action," the official says. "They wanted to punctuate the fact that this was a routine law enforcement action, stripped of any political overtones, and yet [they] got exactly the opposite." Both senior government officials say the raid was scheduled with no political motive, the FBI solely intent on recovering highly classified documents that were illegally removed from the White House.
Preparations to conduct such an operation began weeks ago, but in planning the date and time, the FBI Miami Field Office and Washington headquarters were focused on the former president's scheduled return to Florida from his residences in New York and New Jersey. "They were seeking to avoid any media circus," says the second source, a senior intelligence official who was briefed on the investigation and the operation. "So even though everything made sense bureaucratically and the FBI feared that the documents might be destroyed, they also created the very firestorm they sought to avoid, in ignoring the fallout."
(snip)
https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-informer-told-fbi-what-docs-trump-was-hiding-where-1732283
Novara
(5,817 posts)So he knows who the informant was.
BumRushDaShow
(128,371 posts)VWolf
(3,944 posts)I can live with that.
Hell, even one MONTH for each would be fine with me.
Scrivener7
(50,901 posts)And if they don't, what kind of danger does that put us in?
Demsrule86
(68,455 posts)Bayard
(21,991 posts)I keep wondering how much of this stuff he's already sold.