Jason Easley reports, Trump Devastated As Affidavit Says He Had Information On US Spies:
The redacted affidavit for the search of Mar-a-Lago reveals that Trump had information on US spies and intel that was not to be shared with foreign nationals.
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell said described the information in the redacted affidavit:
Here are some of the classifications that were noted by the FBI agent who was designating the reasons in the affidavit. This is in the document to justify the affidavit. HCS, which is human control system, a designation by a report from a CIA officer or possibly defense intelligence agency based on conversations with a confidential, human source overseas. That is a spy.
And this could be the most alarming of any of these designations of these classifications. Another one is ORCON, originator control, the agency issuing the report controls that sees the document, no foreign, that is cannot be shared with foreign nationals indicating high sensitivity.
Mitchell went on to say that Trump had documents in his possession that were related to sources and methods and were the crown jewels of US intelligence agencies.
What was Trump intending to do with such sensitive national security information? He would not have kept those documents for his memoir or his own reading pleasure.
These kinds of US secrets would be priceless. If Trump was trying to sell them, he could have gotten hundreds of millions or even maybe billions of dollars for them.
From the information in the redacted affidavit, Trump didn’t accidentally take the documents. He stole US secrets that would have a high monetary value, and that could be why he is being investigated for violating the Espionage Act.
Mark Sumner at Daily Kos pieces together reporting from several sources. Intelligence agencies fear that Trump has been leaking information on U.S. spies overseas:
In what may be the most shocking story to emerge from the entire Mar-a-Lago document scandal,The New York Times is reporting that officials at intelligence agencies fear that among the classified information Donald Trump stole was details on U.S. assets embedded in foreign countries. The names, locations, and even the existence of such assets is among the most guarded secrets of the nation.
But something mysterious has been happening over the last few years, with an unusual number of foreign sources being killed or arrested.
In the past, officials have worried that documents leaked by outlets like WikiLeaks might, either purposely or intentionally, reveal the identity of U.S. sources, putting their lives at risk. But now, intelligence agencies have a greater concern: A man who has a horde of stolen documents, connections to numerous hostile governments, and a frequently expressed disdain for both sources and the intelligence community. Put it all together, and you get one of the most amazing front pages in recent years.
Known Timeline:
1. 7/31/2019: Trump spoke with Putin (NYT)
2. 8/3/2019: Trump issued a request for a list of top US spies (The Daily Beast)
3. 10/5/2021: "CIA Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants". (NYT)
4. 8/26/2022: Documents at MAL Could Compromise Human Intel (NYT) 1/5 pic.twitter.com/rqNqRZUQL2
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) August 27, 2022
In the days leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one fact stood out: The United States had uncannily accurate information about Russia’s plans. It was crystal clear that, not only did the U.S. have a fleet of high resolution satellites and other resources observing Russian movements on the ground [signal inteignece], they also had human sources inside the Kremlin that were giving the White House a direct pipeline into Vladimir Putin’s every thought.
It’s hard to put a value on that kind of intelligence. In this one case, it’s even possible that Ukraine would not have survived, had it not received early, accurate warnings of both Russian troop build-ups and Putin’s intentions. Thanks to U.S. intelligence sources.
It can take years to establish a reliable source. It can take moments for that point of light to go dark.
Even before he took up residence in the White House, Trump frequently expressed disdain for the intelligence services. Just as he bragged that he was “smarter than all the generals” and declared that his natural instincts allowed him to declare the climate crisis a fraud, Trump has celebrated his “gut” over the combined efforts of agents and analysts. Stories of Trump’s refusal to engage with intelligence briefings have been all too common over the last five years. Trump sneered that his own intelligence chiefs were “naïve” in their assessments of international events, mocked their findings, and insisted they should “go back to school.”
Even more than intelligence agencies, Trump hates whistleblowers. At every instance, he had ridiculed the idea of an anonymous source, insisted that whistleblowers be revealed, then attacked and endangered them once they were known. In his first impeachment, Trump constantly attacked the whistleblower who revealed his attempt to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He didn’t just ridicule the whistleblower continuously, but insisted that the whistleblower testify in public—Republicans in Congress took up that call.
Most tellingly, when Trump learned an alleged name for the whistleblower, he tweeted it over and over.
Pair Trump’s attitude toward the intelligence services, whistleblowers, and witnesses of all kinds, with his incredible disdain for protecting classified information, and it’s a recipe for utter catastrophe. The revelation of a “NOC list,” giving away dozens of undercover operatives in vital roles, may be the subject of adventure fiction, but it seems like an all-too-real possibility for Trump.
And if the nation needed another reminder of just how lax Trump’s actual security at Mar-a-Lago really is, there was the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story this week in which a 33-year-old Russian-speaking Ukrainian immigrant convinced Trump that she was actually an heiress of the Rothschild banking family.
In addition to the FBI, law enforcement agents in Canada have confirmed that she has been the subject of a major crimes unit investigation in Quebec since February.
But there she was at Mar-a-Lago, playing golf with Trump and Lindsay Graham. She was there. So were all those documents suspected to hold key information about U.S. sources in some of the most sensitive areas of the world.
Even the hint that one of these sources might have been revealed can result in an immediate, emergency exfiltration to bring them to safety in the U.S. That means that it doesn’t even take the death or arrest of a U.S. source to cripple intelligence gathering. All it takes is concern that a source might have been compromised.
Donald Trump has provided plenty of cause for concern.
If Donald Trump or any of his criminal associates provided highly classified intelligence about US human intelligence assets to a foreign government which led to their “termination with extreme prejudice,” it is an act of high treason.
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UPDATE: The Daily Beast reports, “DOJ Reveals Trump Kept Secret Docs Among Clothes and Gifts”, https://www.thedailybeast.com/doj-reveals-donald-trump-kept-secret-docs-among-clothes-and-gifts-at-mar-a-lago?ref=home
The Department of Justice revealed on Friday just how former President Donald Trump guarded some of the nation’s sensitive spy material: casually mixing up seven “TOP SECRET” government documents and two dozen classified documents with news magazines, gifts, books, and his wife’s clothes.
And curiously, the DOJ’s more complete inventory included “43 empty folders with ‘CLASSIFIED’ banners.” [For anyone else, this means “Go to Jail, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.”]
FBI special agents found at least two government documents marked “Secret” and one marked “Confidential” in what the DOJ has previously deemed “the 45 Office,” a popular spot for MAGA-loving celebrities and grifters where Trump sits behind a faux Resolute Desk like the one he once had at the White House. The DOJ had previously only described these records as classified in some capacity, noting they were found in a desk drawer next to Trump’s expired passports.
[At] the direction of Attorney General Merrick Garland, the DOJ previously released a vague and heavily redacted list of items that were taken from the South Florida mansion last month. But the newly released inventory goes into more detail, revealing just how Trump and his staff intermingled some of the nation’s spy material with mundane personal items.
For example, the DOJ claims FBI special agents recovered a box from Trump’s personal office where they found 99 news magazines and press articles—alongside seven government documents marked “TOP SECRET,” 15 marked “SECRET” and two marked “CONFIDENTIAL.”
Curiously, FBI special agents found “43 empty folders with ‘CLASSIFIED’ banners” and “28 empty folders labeled ‘Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide.’” It’s unclear what happened to the many government secrets that would have been inside those folders. It’s possible that they merely contained the classified documents Trump had previously turned over to NARA or the ones he later gave to the DOJ. [It’s also possible he gave them to his Russian handlers.]
Notably, nothing on the inventory list indicates that FBI special agents came across any documents that specifically dealt with the topic of U.S. nuclear weapons—a point of contention for Trump. In recent days, he has complained about rumors that the DOJ was spurred to raid his mansion, in part, out of a concern that he had mishandled sensitive information about the nation’s nuclear arms. A May 11 federal grand jury subpoena specifically requested that Trump fork over any documents still in his possession that, among other classified markings, were labeled S/FRD, which stands for “formerly restricted data” and deals with details about the U.S. nuclear arsenal. But the newly released inventory list doesn’t list anything with that marking.
However, that doesn’t actually mean documents marked “S/FRD” weren’t found, according to a former government official who routinely managed classified records. The “S” stands for “SECRET,” and any one of the classified documents the FBI discovered at Mar-a-Lago could be related to nukes, cautioned J. William Leonard, the retired director of the National Archives Information Security Oversight Office.
-And what is the story that Fox News reports? Melania felt so violated she went out and bought all new underwear.
That’s how America feels, lady!
For all his pretensions and general nastiness Roy Cohn, the Vulgar Talking Yam’s mentor, was a slob at heart. Appears VTY certainly learned that along with all the vileness his mentor passed on. So, VTY should be known as “Sloppy Donnie”.
Concerns about T4ump’s threat to our national security go back to before he took office, and were confirmed when he shared classified Israeli intel with Russians in the Oval Office.
Causing our allies to become wary of sharing intel with the US, putting us in danger.
Countries that used to share intel on terrorists and other threats suddenly worried that if they shared too much with the USA, their sources and people could be hurt.
And that hurt their own national security.
The damage the 2020 loser has done go beyond just the USA and will last for decades.
One of his biographers says he took the documents for one or all of three reasons.
He wanted to keep mementos, like the love letters with Kim, because they make him feel special.
He has information he can use to extort people/governments.
He was going to sell them for money. Doesn’t matter if it was to a collector or a spy or a company that could exploit the information.
It was for all three reasons I’m sure, but money is top of the list.