Senior intelligence officials realized early on that President Donald Trump didn't even read the brief summaries of his regular intelligence briefings. So his CIA officers who prepared briefings come to the Oval Office full of striking images, simplified charts, and sophisticated graphics designed to grab the president's fleeting attention. He told NBC News, several officials familiar with the briefing.
"We had to use images and catchy headlines to get his attention, especially if his name was included," said the former CIA officer he said Doug London.
On August 30, 2019, Top His Spies learned the dangers of that approach. What happened that day became an infamous moment for President Trump — a former intelligence official says perfectly illustrated his approach to dealing with national secrets. A former intelligence official with knowledge of the matter told NBC News. As many experts suspected at the time, they actually tweeted highly sensitive images taken by a secret spy satellite. In doing so, Trump gave U.S. adversaries keen insight into the U.S. ability to spy from above. I tweeted a photo, which shows a failed ICBM test launch that everyone agrees is a highly sensitive photo taken from space." John Bolton Former National Security A security adviser was in Poland when it happened, he told NBC News on Monday. “He tweeted it, declassified by definition, but it showed what would happen if such a photo, even a Twitter attachment, were analyzed by a foreign intelligence agency.
Bolton and those familiar with it say the episode is iconic. , thought it permissible to bring and store what the FBI said was highly classified documents at his compound atMar-a-Lago.
I didn't take the time to figure out what was keeping something secret and what was being protected."
I have direct knowledge of this The former official told NBC News that the president's intelligence briefing that day included photos from one of America's major spy satellites. This is a resolution image far superior to any image on the commercial market. A photo shows the aftermath of a catastrophic failure of an Iranian rocket launch.
"We showed images of Iranian missiles being blown up. It was sophisticated information and he didn't even wait," the former official said. "As soon as we showed him, he said, 'Hey, I'm tweeting this.' He told Trump: "Once we put this out, they'll understand what our capabilities are."[38][39]
"He said, 'Look, I'm the president, I can declassify anything,'" the official said.
Mr. Trump was told he was right, but intelligence agencies asked Mr. Trump to wait so he could provide the same image in a lower resolution. said the official.
Robert O'Brien, who was to replace Bolton as national security adviser, and Vice President Mike Pence also attended the briefing, the former officials said.
Pence, O'Brien, Haspel and Maguire all declined to comment. Former President Trump's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Presidents have in the past disclosed satellite imagery secrets, such as when President John Kennedy released photos of his Soviet missile site during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. I have unlocked. Through a process to ensure that no sources or methods are exposed.
Satellite imagery isn't the only time Trump has been accused of releasing classified information.
As NBC News reported at the time, Trump said he had told the Russian Foreign Minister and Russian Ambassador to the Oval Office in May 2017 that IS had stolen goods. said to have used Security equipment at airports to test bombs that may have been hidden in electronics and slipped into airplane cabins undetected, officials said. And he named the ISIS-held Syrian city where the information was collected, the official added. Senior officials were determined never to bring classified images into the Oval Office again.
Former National Security Advisor Bolton and former CIA officer London said Trump would request sensitive images, charts or other documents.
"The president had a habit of asking us to keep classified documents, and he did it sometimes, but we never knew what happened to them," Bolton said. It was a concern because he did not fully understand the risks to sources and methods, and other dangers of revealing classified information.
London said.
To counter this, London said briefing officials used images that were stretched to the size of posters, preventing Mr. Trump from photographing them.
84} Another former senior intelligence official said Trump "didn't behave as if he felt obligated to keep secrets. He didn't seem to understand." Marc Zaid, an attorney who handles cases involving members of the public and classified information, told NBC News that Trump could not alone be responsible for all the classified materials that ended up in Mar-a-Lago."Donald Trump took the papers off his desk, stuffed them in the U-Haul box, put them on the helicopter, picked them up from the helicopter, at Mar-a-Lago," he said. "Other people did it for him. There must be at least a few others the Department of Justice has indicted under the Espionage Act and other statutes."
