Newly surfaced findings have indicated that some of the documents seized during the FBI’s August raid on Mar-a-Lago were so sensitive that many top officials were not aware of the contents; in fact, confidential information about Iran and China have since been considered some of the most top secret recovered so far.
According to the Washington Post, the newly uncovered papers were the third batch of classified documents obtained from Trump’s Florida residence and subsequently sent to the US National Archives and Records Administration.
Though people close to the matter have reported that many of the sensitive documents held at Mar-a-lago had identifying information scrubbed from them, reports suggest that at least one document recovered by the FBI contains classified material regarding the nature of Iran's missile program, while others focused on China.
As many intelligence officials have warned, the new information about the nature of the documents seized in the search underscores the risk inherent in moving highly classified material from protected government facilities.
The sensitivity of the classified information, which could endanger US intelligence liaisons, will count as an aggravating factor when prosecutors decide whether or not to file charges in relation to the case.
David Laufman, who served as a senior member in the Justice Department, said that “the exceptional sensitivity of these documents, and the reckless exposure of invaluable sources and methods of US intelligence capabilities concerning these foreign adversaries, will certainly influence the Justice Department’s determination of whether to charge Mr. Trump or others with willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act.”
Trump has been careful to deny any allegations, saying in a recently televised interview that presidents have the ability to declassify information ”even by thinking about it.” Lawyers who specialize in matters of national security have dismissed those claims.
“Who could ever trust corrupt, weaponized agencies, and that includes NARA, who disrespects our Constitution and Bill of Rights, to keep and safeguard any records, especially since they’ve lost millions and millions of pages of information from previous Presidents,” he said. “Also, who knows what NARA and the FBI plant into documents, or subtract from documents — we will never know, will we?” asked Trump on his media platform, Truth Social, on Friday afternoon.
Among the almost 13,000 documents seized, 103 of them were classified and 18 were top secret.