Why Trump’s ‘gross mishandling’ of classified info should alarm U.S. allies
Global News In December 2021, according to U.S. prosecutors, an aide to former U.S. president Donald Trump found himself looking at something he had no clearance to see.
Spilled on the floor of a storage room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and estate a room easily accessible from the pool patio, and near a liquor supply closet and other high-traffic areas were allegedly the contents of several boxes of documents Trump had brought to Florida from Washington at the end of his presidency.
The boxes had been moved into the storage room from other parts of the club, including a ballroom and bathroom, at Trump’s direction the previous summer, according to a federal indictment that was unsealed Friday.
That indictment says one of the documents on the floor was marked “SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY” a classification marking that indicated the information could only be viewed by intelligence agencies within the Five Eyes alliance of Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
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The aide, Walt Nauta, took two pictures of the mess with his phone and texted it another employee of Trump, with the Five Eyes-only document in full view, the indictment states.
