Yes, Mar-a-Lago watchers, there really is SECRET//SCI intelligence

Published September 1, 2022 12:00am ET



Twitter “experts” are at it again. Social media has gone wild in response to the Department of Justice’s release of a photograph of a carpet full of classified materials seized by the FBI on Aug. 8 at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. Trump supporters are outraged by this display, which is a standard seizure photo, but with classified documents instead of guns or drugs. Moreover, the former president’s claim that all these documents were declassified is contradicted by the visible classification markings still on them.

What’s depicted in the photo includes five documents with TOP SECRET//SCI cover sheets, meaning what’s behind the sheet is Sensitive Compartmented Information, which can only be stored or read in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF (pronounced “skiff”). The essence of this case is that the former president no longer had a SCIF at his Florida residence and that this information was therefore stored illegally.

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