Donald Trump illegally hid secret documents and created a threat to national security

 Gary Ross

Donald Trump appeared in a Miami, Florida, federal court, where he pleaded not guilty to 37 felony charges.  Trump is charged with mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements.

An essay echo published in The Conversation by Gary Ross, Associate Provessor with Texas A&M:

Donald Trump’s arraignment in federal court was obviously a historic moment for this country. 

Twice impeached and twice indicted, he is the only former American president federally charged with crimes.

How the exposure of highly classified documents could harm US security – and why there are laws against storing them insecurely.

As you’ve no doubt learned by now, he is accused of taking, and then storing in various unsecure locations in Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, documents belonging to the National Archives. The Justice Department says Trump repeatedly refused to hand them over when federal archivists requested he do so.

Whether he was just careless, wanted the documents as trophies or had more nefarious motives is unclear. Whatever his motivations, though, storing those documents in the way the government alleges he did is serious.

Gary Ross, a scholar of U.S. intelligence at Texas A&M University, helps us understand why.

“Historically, foreign spies have attempted to enter highly secure U.S. government buildings to obtain classified information,” he writes. “If (they) knew Trump stored classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, they may have attempted to enter the property. 

In fact, in 2019, a Chinese business consultant entered the resort and initially got past Secret Service agents.”

That woman, who was carrying multiple electronic devices, ultimately was stopped in the main reception area, Ross notes.

I wonder how many other business consultants got through in the many months the documents were still on the property. Don’t you?😁

Trump was hiding secret documents in boxes stored in his bathroom and other places at his Mar-A-Lago home.

When Donald Trump pled not guilty on June 13, 2023, to federal criminal charges related to his alleged illegal retention of classified documents, it was his first opportunity to formally answer charges that he violated the Espionage Act.

The Justice Department alleges that, after his presidency, Trump held, in an unsecure location, documents about some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets, including information about U.S. nuclear programs as well as U.S. and allies’ defense and weapons capabilities and potential vulnerabilities to military attack and that he repeatedly thwarted efforts by the National Archives to retrieve them.

The Conversation asked Gary Ross, a scholar of Intelligence studies, who has investigated cases involving the mishandling and unauthorized disclosure of classified information for multiple U.S. government agencies, to define some of the categories of risk detailed in the indictment and explain how the U.S. and allies may have been harmed.

What’s the risk to US national security?

U.S. national security includes the country’s ability to defend itself, collect and analyze sensitive information about other nations’ capabilities and intentions, and maintain relationships with allies. National security can be compromised in a variety of ways.

Americans are familiar with espionage, or spying. It’s when a government recruits an official or resident of another country – just as the Soviet Union recruited Robert Hanssen, a senior FBI special agent, in 1979 - to provide classified U.S. intelligence.

But the Espionage Act is much broader than traditional spying and includes the unauthorized possession, storage or disclosure of classified information.

According to the federal indictment, Trump stored boxes containing various levels of classified material in different parts of The Mar-a-Lago Club, his Palm Beach, Florida, resort. Boxes were kept on a ballroom stage, in his bedroom and in a bathroom and shower between Jan. 20, 2020, when he left the White House, and Aug. 8, 2021, when the FBI recovered 102 classified documents.

Trump had returned some classified material on Jan. 17, 2021, and June 3, 2021.

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, a report by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction documented two instances in which allied intelligence agencies refused to share sensitive information with the U.S. due to concerns that the U.S. would not protect the information.
What are the risks to soldiers and citizens?

In addition to information about U.S. nuclear programs, the U.S. and allies’ defense, and weapons capabilities and potential military vulnerabilities, the indictment alleges Trump also unlawfully retained classified information about U.S. military retaliation plans in response to a foreign attack.

In enemy hands, this intelligence, if still valid, could significantly increase their ability to develop effective countermeasures or to alter their military tactics. At best, this could prolong a conflict, and, at worst, could allow an adversary to defeat U.S. forces, which could jeopardize citizens’ lives.

In each scenario, the lives of U.S. service members could be placed at increased risk.

Additionally, an enemy able to identify a U.S. vulnerability, particularly a self-identified vulnerability, can also try to exploit that weakness to their advantage, just as the United States did during World War II.

Prior to the 1942 Battle of Midway, U.S. intelligence intercepted and decrypted communications detailing Japan’s military strategy for the upcoming battle.

U.S. forces took advantage of the information, won the decisive conflict and turned the tide of the war.

Ironically, the U.S. was unsuccessful in safeguarding the fact that it had intercepted and decrypted Japanese communications. A Naval officer allowed a Chicago Tribune journalist unauthorized access ❗to classified U.S. communications.

Subsequently the journalist wrote an article revealing the U.S. penetration.

This was one of the few instances in which the U.S. government considered, but ultimately rejected, prosecuting a media outlet for disclosing national defense information.