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When a federal magistrate judge released the court-authorized warrant used to search former President Donald Trump’s home on Friday, 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 inventory of 28 seized items offers a glimpse of what was still kept at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence and private beach club, more than a year after the National Archives and Records began trying to recover presidential records improperly removed from the White House at the end of Trump’s presidency. It offers few details.
Here’s what you need to know about classified information to help decode 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 restricted to individuals who have passed appropriate background checks.
There are three broad 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 specialist at the Federation of American Scientists. The largest number of government workers and contractors, thousands upon thousands, have access to this information. It could include basic State Department cables and information provided by a foreign government, Aftergood said.
“Even if it doesn’t involve highly sensitive secrets, it would be marked as confidential,” Aftergood said. “And you don’t want to release him, 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 this is the broadest category. The budget of a US intelligence agency, for example, could be classified as “secret”.
The most sensitive information is classified as a top secret, meaning it could cause an “exceptionally serious danger” to national security. And within “top secret” are a number of subclassifications that often deal with the most protected pieces of American intelligence and information. The most secret information could include weapons design and war plans.
Sensitive compartmentalized information, a category that falls within the “top secret” classification, includes information derived from sources and intelligence. It may be electronic interception or information provided by a human informant in a foreign country.
“The concern is that if it was revealed, not only would national security be at risk, but the individual source or method could be at risk as well,” Aftergood said.
How officers get warrants like the one used at Mar-a-Lago and what they mean
What classified information did Trump have in his possession?
FBI agents recovered four sets of “top secret,” three sets of “confidential” documents and three sets of “secret” documents from Mar-a-Lago, according to the list of items seized in the raid and untaped by a judge. Friday. Another set of documents was labeled “Various TS/SCI Classified Documents,” a reference to “Top Secret” and “Sensitive Compartmentalized Information.”
But the list does not describe documents beyond their classification levels. Because much of the information seized was classified, legal experts had previously warned that any inventory list would be blank to protect the contents of the documents.
How is the information classified?
In theory, the president decides what information is classified and what is not. But in practice, the president delegates responsibility to chiefs of staff and agencies, who can then give responsibility to others who work for them.
“Throughout the executive branch, there are several hundred officials who can generate it and appoint it,” Aftergood said.
Who can access classified information?
Government employees and contractors must go through background checks to receive the necessary authorization to access classified information. The more sensitive the information, the more arduous the background check process a person would have to go through to obtain clearance. There is certain classified information that can be accessed by thousands of people. For other information, only a handful of people have the necessary clearance levels to access it. The president would have access to all documents and all intelligence information.
Some workers are required to sign nondisclosure agreements when they leave the government to ensure they don’t discuss classified information they had access to while working, said Javed Ali, a senior National Security Council official during the Trump administration who now teaches at the University of Michigan.
“You go through serious levels of background checks to get a clearance, and not everyone passes,” Ali said. “You want people who can be trusted with this sensitive information and who will do the right thing.”
Can a president declassify information?
Yes, the president has the authority to declassify information. Usually, there’s a process for doing that, according to Ali. It includes communicating with the cabinet or head of the agency from which the information originated to ensure that the declassification does not pose a risk to national security.
Trump’s team has said publicly that it declassified all documents found in Florida before leaving the White House. But it’s unclear whether it went through a document-by-document declassification process, working with the appropriate 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 their classification. For example, according to Aftergood, some of the intelligence and nuclear weapons-related documents cannot be declassified by the president. Aftergood said that information is protected by a different law, the Atomic Energy Act.
Another law — called the “collection, transmission or loss of defense information” — states that it is illegal to remove documents related to national security from their proper place if it could endanger the country’s security, regardless of classification level of the information.
“Rank 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 White House property and documents would also violate the Presidential Records Act, which requires presidents to preserve official records during their time in office. The act says records of a presidency are public property and do not belong to the president or the White House staff. Violating the records law would be a civil offense, not a criminal one.
Speaking of violations, what laws did the warrant say could have been violated?
The order lists the codes of three US laws that may have been violated. This does not mean, however, that all of them have been broken, nor that these are the only laws that may have been violated in connection with the FBI’s investigation. The laws relate to the destruction or transfer 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 broad law, and violating 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 proper place 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 of espionage,” Ali said. “But here it has nothing to do with that, as far as we know. Maybe not the cloak-and-dagger kind 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 order does not detail what investigation could obstruct the removal of those documents. It carries a prison sentence of not more than 20 years.
And the third, Section 2071 – “Concealment, removal, or mutilation in general” – makes it illegal to knowingly steal or destroy any government document. Each offense of this fact could lead to a sentence of up to three years in prison. By law, a person convicted of violating this section cannot hold federal office.
Government officials who have been accused of mishandling classified information in the past include David H. Petraeus, director of the CIA during the Obama administration, and Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, national security adviser during the Clinton administration. Both eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully removing secret documents.