Donald Trump took White House documents that were clearly marked “classified” and “top secret” to his Mar-a-Lago estate, a new report from The Washington Post says.
According to the Post, two unnamed sources have confirmed that some of the documents the former president removed were extremely sensitive, or what DC insiders unofficially call “above top secret.” The revelation raises questions about whether Mr Trump may have broken laws regarding the handling of government documents.
The former president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
“It is clear that a normal and routine process is being weaponized by anonymous, politically motivated government sources to peddle Fake News,” Taylor Budowich, a spokesperson for Mr Trump’s Save America PAC, told The Independent. “The Fake News machine, powered by anonymous and politically-motivated sources, is running in overdrive this week, and the leftist media is complicit in spreading these lies.”
News of the Mar-a-Lago documents first began to emerge on Monday, when the Post reported that National Archives officials had to retrieve 15 boxes of White House papers from the Palm Beach resort.
Under the Presidential Records Act, those documents should have been turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration when Mr Trump left the White House.
That law also requires the preservation of White House documents, which it turns out Mr Trump had a habit of ripping to shreds. According to one former aide, Mr Trump also occasionally ate the shreds.
But the “classified” and “top secret” markings could take the issue to a new level of seriousness. According to the National Archives, documents are marked “classified” when “the unauthorized disclosure of the information reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security.” When something is marked “top secret,” that means the damage would be “exceptionally grave.”
None of this necessarily means Mr Trump will face criminal charges. US presidents have broad authority to declassify documents, experts say, and even in a situation where Mr Trump would have needed authorization to declassify something, he could conceivably argue that he authorized himself.
However, there are limits.
“There’s no question that it was improper for classified information to be taken to or to reside at Mar-a-Lago,” David Laufman, a former Justice Department official, told the Post.
