When a federal judge on Friday unsealed the court-authorized warrant used to search former President Donald Trump’s home, he also released an inventory list of all the items taken in the high-profile raid. The unprecedented search was related to an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents, including material related to nuclear weapons, the Washington Post reported Thursday. Agents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago seized 11 sets of classified documents, court filing says The list of 28 seized items provides a glimpse of what was still stored at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence and private beach club, more than a year after the National Archives and Records Administration began trying to recover presidential files that were properly removed from the White House at the end of the Trump presidency. It offers few details. Here’s what you need to know about classified information to help decipher some of the items included in the inventory list. The FBI searched Trump’s home for nuclear documents and other items, sources say
What is classified information? Classified information refers to documents and other records that the government considers sensitive. Access is generally limited to individuals who have passed appropriate background checks. There are three general levels of classified information. Confidential defined as information that could “harm” national security if released, is the lowest level, according to Steven Aftergood, a security expert at the Federation of American Scientists. The largest number of government employees and contractors — thousands upon thousands — have access to this information. It could include key State Department cables and information provided by a foreign government, Aftergood said. “Even if it doesn’t involve highly sensitive secrets, it would be classified as confidential,” Aftergood said. “And you don’t want to release it, because it would complicate diplomatic relations with that foreign government.” Secret is the next level of classification, referring to material that, if released, could cause “serious harm” to national security. Aftergood said that’s the broadest category. The budget of a US intelligence agency, for example, could be classified as “secret”. The most sensitive information is classified as top secret, meaning it could cause an “extremely serious risk” to national security. And within “top secret” there are a number of subclassifications that often deal with the most protected pieces of American information and intelligence. The top secret information could include weapons design and war plans. Sensitive apartment information, a category that falls under the “top secret” classification, includes information derived from sources and intelligence. This can be a wiretap or information provided by a human informant in a foreign country. “The concern is that if it’s disclosed, then not only would national security be at risk, but the individual source or method,” Aftergood said. How agents get warrants like the one used at Mar-a-Lago and what they mean
What classified information did Trump allegedly possess? FBI agents recovered four sets of “top secret” documents, three sets of “confidential” documents and three sets of “classified” documents from Mar-a-Lago, according to the list of items seized in the raid and unsealed by a judge. The manufacture. Another set of documents was named “Miscellaneous Classified TS/SCI Documents”, a reference to “Top Secret” and “Sensitive Departmental Information”. But the list did not describe the documents beyond their classification levels. Since much of the information seized was classified, legal experts had warned in advance that any inventory list would be vague to protect the contents of the documents.
How is information classified? In theory, the president decides what information is classified and what is not. But in practice, the president passes responsibility to cabinet and agency heads, who can then delegate responsibility to others who work for them. “Throughout the executive branch, there are a few hundred officials who can create it and set it,” Aftergood said.
Who can access confidential information? Government employees and contractors must pass background checks to obtain the necessary clearance to access classified information. The more sensitive the information, the more arduous the background check process a person will have to go through to get a license. There is some confidential information that can be accessed by thousands of people. For other information, only a few people have the necessary permission levels to access it. The president would have access to every document and all intelligence information. Some employees must sign nondisclosure agreements when they leave the government to ensure they do not discuss classified information they accessed while on the job, said Javed Ali, a senior official at the National Security Council during the administration Trump who now teaches at the University of Michigan. “You go through serious levels of background checks to get a license and not everyone passes,” Ali said. “You want people they can trust with this sensitive information and do the right thing.”
Can a president declassify information? Yes, the president has the power to declassify information. Usually, there is a process for doing this, according to Ali. It includes contacting the cabinet or agency head from whom the information originated to ensure that its declassification does not pose a risk to national security. Trump’s team has publicly said it declassified all documents found in Florida before he left the White House. But it is not clear whether it went through a document-by-document declassification process in cooperation with the relevant agency.
Can a president legally remove declassified information from the White House? No, according to security experts. There are other laws that protect the country’s most sensitive secrets beyond how they are classified. For example, according to Aftergood, some of the information and documents related to nuclear weapons cannot be declassified by the president. Aftergood said such information is protected by a different law, the Atomic Energy Act. Another law – called the “collection, transmission or loss of defense information” – makes it illegal to remove documents related to national security from their location if it could endanger the country’s security, regardless of the level classification of information. “Classification is only one piece of the picture,” Aftergood said. There are other protections in the law that can make unauthorized disclosure or retention problematic or even criminal. Removing certain assets and documents from the White House would also violate the Presidential Records Act, which requires presidents to preserve official records during their time in office. The act says records from a presidency are public property and do not belong to the president or the White House team. Violating the records act would be a civil, not a criminal, offense.
Speaking of violations, what laws did the warrant say may have been violated? The warrant lists the codes of three US laws that may have been violated. That doesn’t mean they were all broken, however, or that these are the only laws that could have been broken in connection with the FBI’s investigation. The laws address the destruction or movement of government documents and carry criminal penalties. Section 793 — “Collection, transmission or loss of defense information” — is known as the Espionage Act. It is a general law and breaking it does not necessarily mean that someone has committed espionage. The law states that it is illegal to remove documents or records related to national security from their location if doing so could endanger the security of the country. “It’s almost a misnomer, because when people hear ‘espionage,’ they think of the classic definition of espionage,” Ali said. “But here it has nothing to do with it, as far as we know. This may not be the cloak and dagger type of espionage.’ The second, Section 1519 — “Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal and bankruptcy investigations” — criminalizes the destruction or concealment of documents to obstruct an investigation. The warrant does not detail what investigation the removal of those documents could prevent. It carries a prison sentence not exceeding 20 years. And the third, Section 2071 — “Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally” — makes it illegal to willfully steal or destroy any government document. Each offense of this act could carry a prison sentence of up to three years. A person convicted of a violation of this section is barred from holding federal office by law. Government officials who have been accused of mishandling classified information in the past include David H. Petraeus, CIA director during the Obama administration, and Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, national security adviser during the Clinton administration. Both eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of illegally removing classified documents.
