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'God knows what he did with it': Trump insiders were frantic over how he handled secret documents
August 14, 2022
According to a report from NBC News, the revelation that Donald Trump was still hanging onto boxes of sensitive government documents in an unsecured room at his Mar-a-Lago resort has come as no surprise to former members of his White House inner circle.
With an anonymous tipster alerting the Justice Department that the former president was still in possession of top secret files that should have never left Washington, D.C. for th Florida resort, NBC reported on the frantic tossing of documents into banker's boxes in the final days of the Trump presidency.
According to the report, "Trump’s style of handling White House documents has been described by people who worked for him as slapdash and ad hoc, contributing to the debacle he now faces. He was known to rip up records that aides would have to retrieve from trash cans or from the floor and tape back together, according to former aides and multiple reports."
Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton admitted, "It worried people all the time."
RELATED: Mary Trump: 'You have to look seriously at Jared Kushner' as an FBI informant
“Trump had a habit of grabbing intelligence documents. God knows what he did with it,” Bolton, now a Trump critic, added.
According to one source, the Jan. 6 insurrection created havoc at the White House where preparations to leave were in full swing.
“It was a chaotic exit, " they explained. "Everyone piled everything — staff, the White House movers — into the moving trucks. When they got to Mar-a-Lago, they piled everything there in this storage room, except for things like the first lady’s clothes. Everything in a box went there.”
As for Trump, the source indicated he wasn't concerned about the details or logistics.
“He didn’t care. He didn’t care about the boxes. He was in a dark place at the time, if you remember. He didn’t even unpack things,” the insider complained. “Over time, the staff moved them back in. If you had brought him into that storeroom, and asked, ‘Which are your presidential papers?’ he couldn’t tell you.”
Another aide admitted that the former president was unconcerned about sensitive document protocols.
"He’d have no awareness,” this person said. “When he was done with a piece of paper, he’d rip it up and throw it on the ground. That was his way of saying he’s done … [but] the narrative [that] he was ripping up documents like he was his own personal shredding machine is not accurate — he’d rip it in half, not usually into a thousand pieces.”
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During an appearance on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon, Donald Trump's niece, Mary Trump, claimed there are a multitude of reasons to believe that Jared Kushner is the FBI informant working with the Justice Department before the Mar-a-Lago search -- possibly to avoid a criminal investigation of his own.
Agreeing with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen that there is something suspicious about the fact there is no hint that the DOJ is scrutinizing Kushner's $2 billion business deal with the Saudis, the ex-president's niece said that should raise red flags for her uncle.
"We need to look at the potential pool of people which would be very, very small that would benefit from -- potentially benefit from -- the documents that Donald allegedly stole," she suggested. "You have to look seriously at Jared Kushner in that instance because, first of all, he was not supposed to get security clearance and that decision by top security professionals was overridden."
"He recently got $2 billion from the Saudi government to fund this hedge fund company he started," she continued. "Nobody has been asking tough questions about why wasn't he supposed to get a security clearance? Why was that overridden? Also, why haven't we heard anything from this guy for months now?"
"So let me just take what you've said and put it back this way," host Witt interjected. "Would it mean that by cooperating with the government Jared Kushner or someone in his world would then be immune or at least escape, you know, further investigation, any prosecution if he did anything wrong, maybe, if he did something wrong?"
"Yeah, two things: first of all we know how this works," Trump replied. "We know they always want to get the bigger fish. So, if somebody like Jared is in a position to see that he might be in a lot of trouble, there's really only one person who has more power, more interest than he does in these documents, right?"
"The other thing we need to remember about Donald's relationship with his children and probably with his son-in-law," she continued. "It's entirely conditional and transactional. The point at which one party begins to realize that there is nothing in it for him or her anymore is the point at which they part ways.'
MSNBC 08 14 2022 12 12 54 youtu.be
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A Fox News segment on Sunday examined reports that former President Donald Trump may have "illegally transferred" documents to foreign adversaries.
"Did former President Trump try to sell, share the highly classified material to the Russians or to the Saudis or others?" Fox News host Eric Shawn asked. "Or were the documents innocently mishandled and stored because he thought he had a legal right to have them?"
Shawn noted that Russian state media has claimed that Russian officials have seen the documents.
Former intelligence officer Rebekah Koffler agreed that Russian President Vladimir Putin could be in possession of documents that were stored at Mar-a-Lago.
"The real question, Eric, is what Russian President Putin has already done?" Koffler explained. "The truth is the United States is the top target for KGB operative Putin and his spy services. And Mar-a-Lago, former President Trump's estate, is a counterintelligence nightmare, meaning that spies from all over the world, Russia, China and beyond are always on the hunt to lay their hands on top secret information, especially something that is related to nuclear warfare doctrine."
Shawn concluded that the documents were not well secured if federal officials had to ask Trump's staff to put a lock on the storage room.
"We don't know where these documents were floating around," he said.
"The fact that those boxes were not secure is a really grave concern," Koffler remarked. "Apparently some of the documents that were lying around there also were top secret and code word. That is a huge concern. There are various ways that intelligence tradecraft could suck out all kinds of information."
Koffler, however, found it improbable that Trump would personally sell the documents.
ALSO IN THE NEWS: Trump may have thought he could 'sell some of his documents on the open market': biographer
But Shawn reminded the guest that Trump had previously been accused of leaking classified information to Russian officials while he was president.
"We see Russian media exploding today with this coverage of this issue and siding with President Trump," Koffler pointed out. "But that is because they want to divide our society. They understand that President Trump is a hot button for us. And by amplifying this type of issue, they know that they could rip our country apart."
"Eventually what they are hoping to do is heat up the situation so much to the point that social unrest would erupt in America," she concluded. "That is Putin's goal."
Watch the video below from Fox News. You can also watch it at this link.
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