Meanwhile in Mar a Largo:
Nuclear secrets at Trump residence 'a gamechanger'
The
reported discovery of information about a foreign nation’s nuclear
secrets in materials found at Donald Trump’s private residence is
horrifying intelligence experts.
Federal agents seized the document during their search of Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Palm Beach mansion in Florida, last month, the Washington Post reported.
It appears to confirm officials’ worst fears about the nature of the
intelligence he should have returned to the National Archives.
Shawn Turner,
former director of communications for US national intelligence, was
searing in his criticism during an interview Wednesday on CNN’s New Day:
The
fact we now know there were highly classified, restricted access
documents about another country’s nuclear defense capabilities stored at
Mar-a-Lago is a gamechanger with regard to the risk it poses to our
national security.
That these documents may have been seen by unauthorized personnel … tells individuals what our capabilities are with regard to intelligence collection related to nuclear programs.
More important is it identifies or exposes our gaps with regard to intelligence collection.
The bottom line is others are going to look at this information
and determine what we know and don’t know, and they’re going to make
decisions about their nuclear programs based on that information. And
that is an extremely dangerous thing.
The
Post’s reporting is only the latest twist in a weeks-long saga over the
justice department’s investigation into his handling of classified
materials after he left office in January 2021.
Trump, who is mulling another run for the presidency in 2024, attacked the department at a weekend rally where he called the FBI and DoJ “vicious monsters”.
Many others, including Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, have defended the investigation into his retention of government records, saying that it posed a major national security risk.
