Some of the classified documents recovered by the FBI from former US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club included highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post on Friday.
If shared with others, the people said, such information could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the United States wants to keep hidden from the world.
At least one of the documents seized by the FBI describes Iran’s missile program, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Other documents described highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China, they said.
The secret documents about Iran and China are considered among the most sensitive the FBI has recovered to date in its investigation of Trump and his aides for possible mishandling of classified information, obstruction and destruction of government records, the sources told The Washington Post.
A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FBI referred questions about the documents to the Justice Department, which declined to comment.
Some of the most sensitive materials were recovered in the FBI’s court-approved search of Trump’s home on August 8, in which agents seized about 13,000 documents, 103 of them classified and 18 of them top secret, according to court papers.
Those papers were the third batch of classified documents recovered in the course of the investigation. Boxes voluntarily sent from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives and Records Administration earlier this year were found to contain 184 classified documents, 25 of which were marked top secret, according to court records.
In June, Trump’s representatives responded to a subpoena by giving investigators 38 additional classified documents.
A previous Washington Post report indicated that a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents during the search of Trump’s home.
Trump insists that he declassified the documents in question before leaving office. The former President and his lawyers have publicly insinuated on multiple occasions that the agents who carried out the raid planted evidence during the search.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)