The reported discovery of a document detailing a foreign government’s nuclear capabilities at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, is “hugely important for prosecution of the Espionage Act”, according to a former Special Counsel with the US Defence Department.
Ryan Goodman, who is now Co-Editor-In-Chief at Just Security, says “many people are behind bars for far, far less”.
“The document with nuclear intelligence information also means we need our country’s full FBI etc resources to investigate, including tracking chain of custody, damage assessment, remediation,” he said.
The Washington Post, citing a source “familiar with the matter”, reports the FBI found a document “describing a foreign government’s military defenses” during a search last month.
The report says some of the seized material outline U.S. operations “so closely guarded” that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them.
“Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive details of an ongoing investigation,” the report says.
The allegation that such documents have been found at Trump’s Florida residence, under an unknown level of security, will fuel concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about the potential leaking of state secrets.
The FBI has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago so far in 2022.
Donald Trump’s spokespeople are yet to respond to the new allegations.