US federal police seized documents marked “top secret” during their search of former President Donald Trump’s home on Monday, according to court documents released on Friday.
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Previous episodes recall that the Republican billionaire sometimes handled or used confidential information with a certain lightness when he was in power.
His powers as president allowed him to decide alone on the declassification of certain confidential information. But some of his choices have baffled the intelligence community to say the least.
A tweeted image
On August 30, 2019, Donald Trump tweeted an image of what appeared to be a high resolution photograph of a rocket or missile launch pad in Iran. After a meeting with his intelligence services, he confirmed that he had taken the photo.
shared information
On May 10, 2017, the President received Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kisliak, at the White House.
He reveals to them detailed information from a third country in the Middle East on the attack capabilities of the Islamic State (IS) organization.
But these highly protected elements actually came from Israel, deeply irritated to see this information given to the Russians.
A secret revealed
In an April 2017 telephone conversation, Donald Trump told his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte that two American nuclear submarines were sailing off the North Korean coast, carrying with them “a huge strike force”, according to the presidency. filipina.
The location of nuclear submarines, central elements of the American nuclear deterrent, is a closely guarded secret by the Pentagon.
A nuclear tool revealed
In an interview with American star journalist Bob Woodward in 2019, Donald Trump mentioned the existence of a secret American nuclear tool.
“I built a weapon system, a nuclear thing, that nobody has had in this country before,” he said. “We have something Putin or Xi have never heard of.”
Too many details
In revealing the death in an American raid of the leader of the Islamic State (IS) organization (IS) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019, the American president gave many details – number of helicopters involved, entry of commandos into the building , prior spying via ISIS phones and internet — usually kept secret by the Pentagon.
This information can allow adversaries of the United States to better understand how its army is proceeding, estimated the former commander of the special forces Michael Nagata with the site Politico.
A misinformed environment
Donald Trump, finally, did not seem to tell his spy chiefs everything.
In July 2018, intelligence chief Dan Coats seemed surprised when, at a conference, he was told that the White House was inviting Vladimir Putin, with whom Mr Trump had just spoken in Helsinki, to Washington.
“Sorry?” he had said.
Mr. Coats had also admitted to having been left in the dark regarding the content of the meeting of heads of state in Finland. “I don’t know what happened during that meeting,” he said, three days following the interview.
