The DOJ has not provided specific information about how or where the classified documents and photos had been stored at Mar-a-Lago, but the club’s general vulnerabilities have been well documented.
In a high-profile example, Trump huddled in 2017 with Japan’s then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at an outdoor dinner table while guests hovered nearby, listening and taking photos that they later posted on Twitter.
That dinner in 2017 was disrupted by a North Korean missile test, and guests listened as Trump and Abe figured out what to say in response. After issuing a statement, Trump dropped by a wedding party at the club.
“What we saw was Trump be so lax in security that he was having a sensitive meeting regarding a potential war topic where non-US government personnel could observe and photograph,” said Mark Zaid, a lawyer who specialises in national security cases.
“It would have been easy for someone to also have had a device that heard and recorded what Trump was saying, as well.”
White House aides did set up a secure room at Mar-a-Lago for sensitive discussions. That was where Trump decided to launch air raids against Syria for the use of chemical weapons in April 2017.
In 2019, a Chinese woman who passed security checkpoints at the club carrying a thumb drive coded with “malicious” software was arrested for entering a restricted property and making false statements to officials, authorities said at the time.
Then-White House chief of staff John Kelly launched an effort to try to limit who had access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, but the effort fizzled when Trump refused to cooperate, aides said at the time.
“It’s a nightmarish environment for a careful handling of highly classified information,” said a former US intelligence officer. “It’s just a nightmare.”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES, REUTERS
Article Appeared @https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/13/trumps-mar-a-lago-a-security-nightmare