'This is significant': Former FBI official describes the problem with Trump keeping 'special access program documents'
The Justice Department filing dropped late on Tuesday night, revealing more than what was anticipated about Donald Trump's scandal over government documents stored at his Florida resort. Among what was included was a photo of classified "top secret" information that was still included in folders that were clearly marked strewn about the Mar-a-Lago floor.
Speaking to MSNBC on Wednesday morning, former assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI, Frank Figliuzzi, explained that the information answered a lot of his questions about what all the Justice Department had and identified.
"This is significant," he explained. "It jumped out at me, these are counterintelligence agents, and counterintelligence national security officials from DOJ. They would have had, because of their position, many of the clearances available to the highest cleared people in the government. This came as a surprise, is my guess, meaning, hey, does everybody have HSI, everybody good to see almost anything we could possibly see -- yep, we're good. OK, let's go."
What was seen once they were inside the former president's resort is that there was something else more compartmented.
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"What that probably means, in my experience, is there were special access program documents because those are very specific to time and position," Figliuzzi said. "You get read in and out as you need to, and that's extremely sensitive."
He went on to tell the host that when he was working for the FBI, he was required to take a polygraph before being allowed in to read the information and another one after reading the information.
"I'm not trying to be overly dramatic," he explained. "Even a discussion of the nature of special access programs becomes problematic. That's how sensitive they are. It's project-oriented. It could be long-term research that the government's doing on some incredibly sensitive technology. It could be the next iteration of a nuclear program or submarine. It could be a new weapons plan that's being worked on. It could be a new effort to insert people into a certain terrorist organization. We just don't know. But we know it's time sensitive. It's the most limited access you can get, and you get briefed in and out."
Figliuzzi continued, relaying that he's had some underlying questions about where they are in the process of the investigation that could indicate both their level of seriousness and the effectiveness of Trump's legal defense.
"I've had a question in my mind since this news broke — how much has already moved from the filter team to the investigative team?" he asked. "And what we learned in this DOJ response last night was this train has left the station. We've done our filter review, and we've provided the investigative team with everything that we think is relevant, and that they can start looking on. So the train has left the station. The investigative team has this. Anything now that impedes the investigative team from moving forward is an unnecessary delay."
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