Do people in Washington need these documents to do their jobs? For example, I have read that Trump may have absconded with a list of American assets situated in the Kremlin – stuff like staff-members who spirit out information to the CIA. So, when someone at CIA needs to make contact with one of these assets, he/she goes to look for the directory and… it’s in Mar-a-Lago! Has this sort of thing been happening?
There are presumably file copies which are always kept in the archives. If somebody needs to have the document, a copy is made of the file copy and sent to them. So the original documents are always available in the archives.
And then I assume the copy is destroyed, except for a few stored in other places so someone doesn’t have to hoof it from the CIA all the way to, say, the UN.
Seems to me that, if a document can only be viewed in a SCIF, that making a copy would be problematic. I would think that having someone hoard documents at his/her private residence would inconvenience other people needing to access those records in the normal course of their responsibilities.
The DoD has dedicated secured computer networks for handling classified information: SIPRNET for Secret and below, and JWICS for Top Secret and SCI. Documents don’t just exist in paper form. Hardcopies of classified documents are tracked using serial numbers, and records kept regarding who is in possession of each copy. Physical copies of documents don’t need to be transported between sites.
Perhaps not exactly what the OP was asking, but was wondering something similar.
Could any of the documents Trump took from have helped Biden in the first few months of his administration? Of course, it’s hard to know what we don’t know, but maybe some intel on Afghanistan that could have prevented our withdrawal from being as bad? Maybe stronger evidence of Putin’s plans on invading Ukraine? Or, more likely, stuff we can’t even guess about since we just don’t know.
Another possibility I have wondered about is what if some of the “classified documents” in his possession were forgeries? That is, not genuine CIA intel, but made to look like it, which he could believe would be OK to sell to foreign governments since they would be just lies? This would also, perhaps, explain why Trump is frantic about preventing them from being investigated. That is, Trump has enough money and power to be immune from any punishment the DoJ can dish out, but maybe someone who finds out they paid handsomely for a pack of lies doesn’t play as nice at the DoJ. Russia, Saudi Arabia, or a few others, who aren’t well known for respecting our constitutional protections.
This is the idea that I find so bizarre. In the other thread as well, a couple people seemed to think that these classified documents could be unique physical objects that could not be replicated.
There are only three possible ways they could be unique objects: handwritten, typed on a typewriter, or created on a computer and then printed but never saved. None of those make any sense to me.
Obviously classified documents are created on secure computers with a way to track them, and also to reproduce in case there’s a fire or flood or whatever. And of course they are saved.
It’s so bizarrely quaint to imagine our intelligence services using typewriters and being very worried about papers being damaged because that could mean a permanent loss of classified information related to national security. Not only is that not the world we live in, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live in that world. What are our intelligence services, the Keystone Kops? Please tell me they are more competent than that.
Just imagine it: Oh shit, I just spilled coffee on the list of CIA assets abroad. Welp, I guess we no longer know who our assets are. Hopefully they’ll check in at some point. Maybe we should save that list somewhere.
I mean, come on!