Documents About a Foreign Nation's 'Nuclear Capabilities' Were Among Material Seized at Mar-a-Lago: Report
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Joe Raedle/Getty. Inset: Zach Gibson - Pool/Getty Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. Inset: Donald Trump.
New details are emerging about the classified documents allegedly found during the FBI's August search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.
The Washington Post reports that "a document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities," was among the items seized.
The report also claims that some of the documents taken detail U.S. operations so top-secret that only the president, Cabinet-level or near-Cabinet-level officials could access them.
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According to the Post, those documents "require special clearances on a need-to-know basis, not just top-secret clearance," and would typically be kept in a "secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location."
Instead, the Post reports, they were being stored at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, more than a year after he left office. The Post's sources did not identify the foreign government outlined in the document or say specifically where at the resort it was found.
The report comes weeks after an inventory of the items taken in the search and unsealed by a U.S. District Court showed 11 sets of classified documents — some of which were marked as top secret, and meant to only be available in special government facilities.
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The search of Mar-a-Lago came after numerous attempts by the federal government to track down missing documents from Trump's time in office. In January, after being contacted by the National Archives and Records Administration, Trump and his associates sent 184 documents from Mar-a-Lago to the archives.
In early June, FBI agents and a senior Justice Department national security supervisor reportedly visited the resort in regards to boxes of classified documents sitting in the property's basement. A Trump attorney handed over 38 documents at the time, and officials followed up with instructions to install a stronger lock on the storage room door.
Trump reportedly assured officials that he had no more classified materials, but weeks later, "someone familiar with the stored papers told investigators there may be still more classified documents at the private club," per The Wall Street Journal.
In August, agents came back with the warrant, ultimately leaving with more than 100 documents.
Trump has said documents stored at Mar-a-Lago had been declassified by him, though it's unclear if he undertook any formal process to declassify them. The claim has also been refuted by more than a dozen former Trump administration officials.
A federal judge on Monday granted Trump's bid that a "Special Master" be appointed to review the documents seized by the FBI in August, setting a Friday deadline for the former president's attorneys and Justice Department prosecutors to submit a list of candidates to serve in the role.
