National Security Implications of Highly Classified Documents Illegally Retained by Former President

The attempts by the government -- National Archives and the DOJ -- to recover thousands of unsecured Presidential records held illegally by Trump has exposed significant risks to our national security.

Not only have hundreds of highly classified documents been found, but very worrisome is that the search warrant found over 40 classified folders where the underlying classified documents were missing. !!

The lackadaisical treatment of Presidential records and highly classified documents by Trump indicates significant danger to our country’s intelligence activities and their people.

Over the past few years, the intelligence community has had alerts to safeguard their contacts and even revealed human sources (i.e., spies) who “went missing”.

We cannot forget when Trump first took office in 2017 he invited high-level Russian officials directly into the Oval Office and promptly revealed sensitive Israeli intelligence -- requiring an ally (Israel) to feel the ultimate betrayal after years of collaboration with U.S. intelligence. (Israel had to take immediate steps to protect its sources and its intelligence programs after Trump's betrayal.)

Then in 2019, Trump privately met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and destroyed any notes or records.

Plus we remember a public photo taken by a random guest having dinner at Mar A Lago in 2017 when Trump was publicly hosting Japanese Prime Minister Abe. During dinner in the public dining room, intelligence reports arrived for Trump about North Korea’s missile launch. Such sensitive intelligence was publicly discussed over the dinner table with resort guests included.

Or in 2019 when Trump publicly tweeted the highly secret photo of an accident at an Iranian space facility taken by a previously not publicly known classified satellite or drone.

The U.S. has a history of investigating and prosecuting the illegal handling of classified information (see 18 U.S.C. Sec 2071(a) and (b)) and the gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information (18 U.S.C. 793, the “Espionage Act”).

This includes high profile cases such as Ret. Gen. David Petraeus, former head of the CIA, for illegally sharing information, and Sandy Berger, former National Security Advisor, for illegally removing and concealing information. Also, a former NSA contractor, Reality Winter, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for leaking a classified document about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

However, these cases did not involve the magnitude of the documents removed and concealed by Trump. And with Trump’s history, we should not feel that any of our most sensitive intelligence reports have been treated appropriately by Trump. Neither the U.S. nor our allies can feel safe about anything that has EVER fallen into Trump’s hands and ultimately stashed in unsecured boxes.

Our questions are not answered -- Why did Trump take OUR most sensitive documents and what has he done with them? Who were they shared with? How many lives has he endangered? How much essential intelligence have we lost? And for what?

The true impact of the threat to our national security and that of our allies may never be known. Trump has single-handedly ended many years of intelligence collaboration and compromised innumerable intelligence programs. And for what?

Footnote: And for the record, Hillary Clinton’s classified document situation was not even remotely close to the danger posed by Trump. Secretary of State Clinton had 3 documents with markings that they at one time had been classified. None of the documents had anything to do with espionage nor a compromise to national security. They appeared on her computer server when Secretary Clinton by mistake used the wrong email account to respond to emails from others who had attached such documents. This comparison is nothing more than a distraction by Republicans for Trump’s inexcusable damage to our country.