Au Contraire, Mes Amis

This statement means nothing. It is of no value, news or otherwise. https://t.co/N9FHmD6Y7U

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) August 12, 2022

no one knows anything

no one

not Newsweek

not Washington Post

like Newsweek, a distraction, it’s mud

Nuke secrets could be the set up, he is a grifter surrounded by grifters

whatever is in the warrant, anything short of nuke secrets now becomes happenstance

no one knows

— YS (@ReallyActivist) August 12, 2022

Somebody knows something. Remember the adage that the stuck pig squeals; the guilty dog barks loudest.

Remember that Trump has the inventory.  And yes, he probably knows what it lists, and how it lists it.  And no, the inventory won't list contents of documents, and the highly classified ones will barely be mentioned at all, except by general reference.

The search was part of an effort to account for some of the most highly classified material in government, known as Special Access Programs, a person briefed on the matter said https://t.co/es0aah5WpN

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 12, 2022

But that's the issue. Were "Top Secret" documents at MAL? Were documents classifed as "Special Access Programs" there? Were they even documents? A security expert on MSNBC this morning said highly classified documents would be handled by special courier and removed from special envelopes only for the President and only in a SCIF (the entire White House, including the Oval Office, is not a SCIF). And wouldn't be printed, except for the White House, implying "burn after reading" status to those of us who relish pop culture spy labels. Which either means Trump couldn't have taken them, or: YIKES!

The only -- O-N-L-Y -- thing that keeps me from rolling on the floor about this is that the USG's classification system is a paranoid mess.

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) August 12, 2022

And yeah, my 60's activist kicks in, too, with stories like this. But that's not a legal defense, and it's not much of a defense in the court of public opinion. And in direct response to YSR: some of this could go beyond "nuke secrets." If it does, the question becomes less "Did Trump give away our nuke secrets to foreign powers?" and more "Did Trump seek buyers for our other secrets?"

This story just went way beyond Trump flaunting love letters from North Korea to his friends at MAL.  

And you gotta wonder:  why would Trump say "nuclear documents" were planted by the FBI, unless he knows they were found?  He has the inventory of what was taken.  Why is he trying so hard to get out ahead of a story that isn't a story yet?

I have to add:  nuclear information isn't the most highly classified information Trump might have had.  It just the one the public recognizes as important.  "Signal intelligence" sounds like the PBS merchandise catalog I get every month, or something Umberto Eco would rumble on about.

"Former senior intelligence officials said in interviews that during the Trump administration, highly classified intelligence about sensitive topics, including intelligence-gathering on Iran, was routinely mishandled," the newspaper reported. "One former official said the most highly classified information often ended up in the hands of personnel who didn’t appear to have a need to possess it or weren’t authorized to read it. That former official also said signals intelligence — intercepted electronic communications like emails and phone calls of foreign leaders — was among the type of information that often ended up with unauthorized personnel. Such intercepts are among the most closely guarded secrets because of what they can reveal about how the United States has penetrated foreign governments."

That pattern may not have ended when Trump left the White House after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.

"A person familiar with the inventory of 15 boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago in January indicated that signals intelligence material was included in them," the newspaper reported. "The precise nature of the information was unclear."

Signals intelligence (like electronic intercepts) are some of the most sensitive and secretive material in the US. There are a host of special markings and protections on every such document. https://t.co/xL2BmjEQtU

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) August 12, 2022

There are things more important than "nuclear." Trump not braying about that is the dog that didn't bark.