FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024

[Sage_Rat]

I’ll vote that it was a misrecalled “whole hog”.

[JohnT]

Called it:

FBI searched Trump’s home to look for nuclear documents and other items,...

[Ssounder]

Pay walled but they probably answered the nuclear question in June.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@Ssounder

Late edit, but I don’t think a coverup story about destroying official gov docs would be ignored by the masses.
It doesn’t look good on your resume.

pfffft. Like it would make any difference. It would be like if a giant 200 pound lump of shit stepped in some dogshit. His fans would love it, if it would piss off “the libs”

[JohnT]

Does this work?

[JohnT]

@Ssounder

Pay walled but they probably answered the nuclear question in June.

Sorry, the article said nuclear documents were one of the foci of the search this past Monday.

[Aspenglow]

Thank you, yes!

[Spoons]

Working for me, John. Thanks!

[Euphonious_Polemic]

Yes, thank you!

And Great Googly Moogly:

Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

[crowmanyclouds]

‘Yeah? Well what about the classified documents relating to nuclear weapons on Biden’s laptop that I just made up? WHAT ABOUT THEM???’
Soon to be heard from a right-wing loony near you!

[Ssounder]

Good find indeed.
I hang my head in conspiracy shame.

[Aspenglow]

If evidence of top secret nuclear weapons documents is found, I wonder if the public will consider this “serious” enough for indictments.

[JohnT]

Will say, this explains Garland’s confidence today. Nuclear secrets, Holy Mother of God. I don’t care what the Trumpies say (never have, really), but the man deserves a bullet after his trial.

[Jas09]

And to put a bow on it, nuclear weapons information (RD/FRD) is classified by statute, not under the executive authority described up-thread. So Trump can’t claim he declassified it.

Why Trump would want to hold onto RD/FRD data and not provide it to NARA/FBI/DoE is hard to imagine, to be honest.

ETA: Now I see that it could include nuclear information re: other countries. So perhaps some correspondence between US and Israel, or something, that Trump wanted to hold onto… I’m trying to find a “stupid, but not traitorous” explanation…

[Aspenglow]

Probably because Uncle Vlad wants it.

[JohnT]

He was waiting for a bad hurricane season, sell it to the highest bidder.

[Moriarty]

Yes. Thanks. From my reading, here are the relevant parts:

Material about nuclear weapons is especially sensitive and usually restricted to a small number of government officials, experts said. Publicizing details about U.S. weapons could provide an intelligence road map to adversaries seeking to build ways of countering those systems. And other countries might view exposing their nuclear secrets as a threat, experts said.

One former Justice Department official, who in the past oversaw investigations of leaks of classified information, said the type of top-secret information described by the people familiar with the probe would probably cause authorities to try to move as quickly as possible to recover sensitive documents that could cause grave harm to U.S. security.

“If that is true, it would suggest that material residing unlawfully at Mar-a-Lago may have been classified at the highest classification level,” said David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section, which investigates leaks of classified information. “If the FBI and the Department of Justice believed there were top secret materials still at Mar-a-Lago, that would lend itself to greater ‘hair-on-fire’ motivation to recover that material as quickly as possible.”…

Former senior intelligence officials said in interviews that during the Trump administration, highly classified intelligence about sensitive topics, including about intelligence-gathering on Iran, was routinely mishandled. One former official said the most highly classified information often ended up in the hands of personnel who didn’t appear to have a need to possesses it or weren’t authorized to read it.

That former official also said signals intelligence — intercepted electronic communications like emails and phone calls of foreign leaders — was among the type of information that often ended up with unauthorized personnel. Such intercepts are among the most closely guarded secrets because of what they can reveal about how the United States has penetrated foreign governments.

A person familiar with the inventory of 15 boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago in January indicated that signals intelligence material was included in them. The precise nature of the information was unclear.

So, perhaps nuclear secrets - since they felt compelled to get a warrant.

And, likely secret communications, which might expose secret agents.

But why would trump have such things? Was he selling secrets?? The mind boggles.

[JohnT]

@Aspenglow

If evidence of top secret nuclear weapons documents is found, I wonder if the public will consider this “serious” enough for indictments.

It’s statutory. From what I am hearing, this is immediate Rosenberg territory. Will wait for better analysis, and of course we don’t know what the docs are, but my strategy of assuming the worst of America’s Antichrist has never taken a lot of blows.

[JohnT]

@Moriarty

But why would trump have such things? Was he selling secrets?? The mind boggles.

The bidding would start at a billion.

[DCnDC]

@Moriarty

Was he selling secrets??

“Selling,” or “delivered as ordered”? We still don’t completely know who Trump owes.