Mar-A-Lago is a “nightmare” for keeping state secrets, a former US intelligence officer said amid the political firestorm that sparked the FBI raiding the Florida resort to get them back. The search was part of an FBI probe into whether former President Donald Trump violated three federal laws, including the Espionage Act, by moving boxes of material, some of it highly classified, from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. And in an Aug. 8 raid, FBI agents got back much of that material, noting in a legal filing that there was a mix of confidential, secret and top secret files there. Trump supporters and activists claim the unprecedented FBI investigation was politically motivated. But the location of the materials at the Palm Beach home was a clear concern for intelligence officials — a place where Trump has amassed a string of incidents of national security concern. Weeks before the raid, investigators told Trump to add a lock to the basement room where the documents were kept, CNN reported. “It’s a nightmare environment for the careful handling of highly classified information,” a former US intelligence official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “It’s just a nightmare.” Another expert, former CIA counterterrorism analyst Aki Peritz, called the sprawling 126-room club an obvious target. Speaking to CNN, Peritz said, “Mar-a-Lago has been a porous place since Trump declared his candidacy and started winning the primaries several years ago. “If you were any intelligence agency, friendly or hostile, worth its salt, they would be concentrating their efforts on this incredibly porous place.” Throughout his presidency, Mar-a-Lago has been home to security breaches — some committed by Trump himself. Then-US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Aki Abe at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida on April 17, 2018. MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images In 2017, when Trump hosted then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the club, he shocked security officials by nonchalantly discussing news of a North Korean missile test in front of impressed guests. A defense policy expert told Insider at the time that the incident signaled to spies that it would be “much easier” to eavesdrop on the president. At Mar-a-Lago, the Secret Service physically screened visitors, but had no control over who could visit — a fact the agency had to clarify in a rare public statement following a 2019 breach. In March of that year, a Chinese woman broke into the club carrying a USB drive and a device to detect hidden cameras, among other technology that raised concerns that she was a spy. She had been able to get in after a Secret Service investigation found that the name on her passport partially matched that of a club member. On Friday, Trump said all the documents at Mar-a-Lago were “declassified” — a claim that House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Jim Himes said was “bullshit.” Declassifying the documents is a complicated process that can take months, Himes said.
