Sources familiar with the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this week said that agents were looking for whether the former president had improperly taken documents pertaining to nuclear weapons.
Much of the materials believed to have been at the Palm Beach, Florida, estate — documents that were relocated from the White House by Trump during his last days in office — were labeled with the designation “special access,” according to sources with knowledge of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) rationale for the search. Such a designation means that a document is only meant to be accessible by people with the highest level of security clearances.
Authorities were reportedly worried that the information being stored at Mar-a-Lago could “potentially…[fall] into the wrong hands,” per reporting from The Washington Post. The Trump property is known for having a high degree of security-related vulnerabilities.
The Post also cited sources with knowledge of the search that said the FBI believed the documents Trump was still holding at Mar-a-Lago (beyond an initial retrieval of “top secret” documents at the start of the year and a retrieval that took place, by subpoena, in June) included classified documents pertaining to nuclear weapons.
Those sources, speaking anonymously about the investigation, did not tell the Post whether the documents suspected to be at the Trump estate dealt with weaponry in the U.S. or foreign nations. The sources also wouldn’t comment on whether any of the 12 boxes the FBI retrieved on Monday included documents relating to nuclear weaponry.
Still, the revelation is startling — if Trump indeed removed materials that dealt with nuclear weapons, it would be a significant breach of national security secrets, and could explain in large part why the FBI acted swiftly (and without notification to Trump himself) to retrieve the documents.
“If the FBI and the Department of Justice believed there were top secret materials still at Mar-a-Lago, that would lend itself to greater ‘hair-on-fire’ motivation to recover that material as quickly as possible,” David Laufman, a former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section, said to the Post.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) called for transparency and sober minds.
“We need more facts. We need to see the warrant,” said Murphy. “We can’t be sure what’s going on. But for now every single Republican who rushed to Trump’s defense with all sorts of real and fake outrage needs to stand down.”
Reports of what the FBI and DOJ were looking for came hours after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the department would be calling for the search warrant to be made public so that every American could know what prompted the search of the property.
“More information [about the search] will be made available in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time,” Garland said on Thursday.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $120,000 in one-time donations and to add 1383 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy