Foreign nation’s nuke capabilities seized at Mar-a-Lago
(The Hill) — FBI agents who searched former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home found a document detailing a foreign government’s nuclear capabilities and other military defenses, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
The document containing the nuclear information was found during the Aug. 8 search that was authorized by an FBI affidavit that has now been released with redactions. The sources did not disclose to the Post the identity of the foreign government.
The Post had reported in August that the FBI was searching in part for documents containing nuclear information, something Trump later dismissed as a “hoax.”
The search took place more than a year and a half after Trump’s departure from the White House and uncovered 100 classified documents.
Some of the documents seized by the FBI in its search of Mar-a-Lago were reportedly cleared on a need-to-know basis rather than being open to specific members of the government with high-level security clearances, according to sources who spoke to the Post.
Documents at the same level of security as the ones flagged by the Post’s sources are normally locked in a secure facility where their location is able to be tracked.
The 100 documents found during the Mar-a-Lago search were added to a total of 300 classified documents that have been retrieved since Trump left office in 2020.
The others were found when boxes of records were sent to the National Archives and Records Administration and later in response to a further probe by investigators. A judge on Monday verified Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review the documents found in the Mar-a-Lago search, meaning that an independent person will look into the information being assessed by the courts.
The Hill has reached out to Trump, the FBI and the Justice Department for comment.