‘Unbelievable’: Texas intel experts shocked by Trump’s classified trove at Mar-a-Lago

Intelligence experts expressed shock Wednesday that FBI agents found highly classified documents tucked into desk drawers at Donald Trump’s Florida estate — long after aides said he’d turned over all such materials. “The former president has not yet explained or defended his actions in moving classified government documents to his private residence, storing them in unsecure spaces and declining to return the materials to the government when asked to do so,” said Stephen Slick, a senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council during President George W. Bush’s second term. In a 36-page court filing late Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed that the FBI raid Aug. 8 was prompted by evidence that “government records were likely concealed and removed” from a storage room from Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort where Trump now lives.

“The government goes to extraordinary lengths to preserve the secrecy of national defense information. Safes, alarms, cameras and guards are deployed in secure spaces across Washington, D.C, including at the White House,” said Slick, a 28-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service who now directs the Intelligence Studies Project at the University of Texas. A number of Texas Republicans have questioned the legitimacy of the investigation, though none has explicitly defended Trump’s handling of classified documents, or asserted that he was within his rights to take reams of official records from the White House when he left office. “It is pretty unbelievable that the documents shown in the photograph and/or described in the court filings would not be kept secure in an appropriate facility,” former House Armed Services chairman Mac Thornberry, a West Texas Republican who also served on the intelligence committee before retiring from Congress last year, said by email. “Just when I think I can’t be surprised any more, I am.” Under the President Records Act, a Watergate-era law, presidents must turn over all official documents to the National Archives, without exception.