A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director and an MSNBC contributor appeared to suggest late Thursday that former President Donald Trump be executed over nuclear documents.
MSNBC contributor Michael Beschloss tweeted a photograph of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two Americans who were convicted of conspiring to hand over U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union and were executed in 1953, according to History. The tweet read, “Rosenbergs were convicted for giving U.S. nuclear secrets to Moscow, and were executed in June 1953.”
“Sounds about right,” former CIA director and four-star Air Force General Michael Hayden responded in a quote tweet.
Sounds about right. https://t.co/hJCjxhN2BQ
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) August 12, 2022
The post followed reports that Trump held onto nuclear documents in his private residence, Mar-a-Lago. The Washington Post reporter Shane Harris first broke the story about the alleged nuclear documents taken to Mar-a-Lago from the White House when Trump left office. The report lacked specific details on these nuclear documents other than reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sought them in the Monday raid on the former president’s home. Harris did not delve into any details regarding the alleged nuclear document in an interview with CNN Friday.
“What we understand is that among these classified documents that the FBI was searching for are documents related to nuclear weapons,” Harris said on CNN. “Now, we’re very clear in this story, we do not know whether that relates to U.S. nuclear weapons, the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, or research, or information about the nuclear weapons of other countries. But what we do understand is that this information which would in any instance be among the most tightly guarded secrets in the U.S. government appears to have caused sufficient concern that helped motivate this extraordinary search at the former president’s home.”
Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb cast doubt on the allegations during a Thursday appearance on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News. “I have not specifically spoken to the president about what nuclear materials may or may not have been in there. I do not believe there were any in there,” she said, according to the Washington Examiner.
Trump announced the raid, where agents entered the residence and searched for White House documents taken to Mar-a-Lago, in a Monday statement. The investigation is in connection to 15 boxes of some reportedly classified documents that the National Archives and Record Administration requested be handed over to them, The Wall Street Journal reported. (RELATED: Trump Encourages ‘Immediate Release’ OF Documents Relating To FBI Raid On Mar-A-Lago)
The FBI found 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked top secret, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday that he “personally approved” the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking out a search warrant of the home, which had been granted by Judge Bruce Reinhart.
Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said the informant notifying the FBI of possible classified information inside Mar-a-Lago had to be “very close” to the former president.