Deep Within The Bustling Mar A Lago A Warehouse Where Secrets Were Hidden

Comment The ornate centerpiece of the historic Mar-a-Lago estate that Donald Trump bought on the cheap in 1985 is a spacious, elegant living room with a gold ceiling and a massive stone fireplace. Directly below is a much more modest open space with a concrete floor. Excavated in the foundation of the early 20th-century building shortly after Trump bought the space, a former employee said, it was carved out to create more space to store tables, chairs, umbrellas — the things necessary to complete the conversion. of Trump in what was once a large single-family residence in a private club for 500 members. In the southeast corner of that area, behind a plain door, is a large closet-like space that workers once called “the mold room” in honor of the molds left in the corner, the former employee said. Today, employees think of the room more like the former president’s personal closet, one said. It is here, in this windowless corner, where some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets are said to have been kept. The room plays a leading role in the Justice Department’s indictment of its interactions with Trump and his lawyers, including the partially unsealed affidavit that accompanied the FBI’s request to investigate Mar-a-Lago last month. “STORAGE ROOM,” that document called it, explaining that the space it did not meet the strict standards outlined in federal regulations for housing highly classified documents. Trump team may have hidden, transported classified documents, Justice Department says Court filings say a top Justice Department official and a team of FBI agents were allowed to tour the warehouse when they visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to pick up classified documents collected by Trump’s lawyers in response to a subpoena from grand jury. Trump’s lawyer said the room was where they would find all the documents that had been moved from the White House to Florida after Trump left office. Two months later, agents returned with a court-approved search warrant and seized more than two dozen boxes of documents and various other items collected from the former president’s warehouse and office. The raid re-exposed the potential dangers of keeping highly sensitive material at a club that hosts weddings, galas and other large events, where foreigners are common and many employees — as well as some guests — are foreign nationals. It’s still unclear why Trump chose the basement storage facility to store highly sensitive documents, nor who exactly had access to the documents stored there — or who could have if they tried. Representatives for Trump and his company did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s lawyers revealed that the Justice Department sought surveillance video from the club in late June. people familiar with the matter said the video showed various people walking in and out of the larger storage area. People close to Trump said various Mar-a-Lago and Trump executives had access to that space below the public lounge. Access to the cabinet where the documents were kept was more restricted, they said. “It’s a very limited number of people who have access down there,” Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb told Fox News host Laura Ingraham days after the FBI probe. “Certainly Mar-a-Lago is safe, in and of itself. It’s just hard to get into the band. Then it was a locked door. Going back to the basement, there is security down there, only certain staff can go down there.’ “And then,” he added, “there is only one key.”

A security “nightmare”. Bob did not answer subsequent questions about the key – including where it was kept and who controlled access to it. Some of her other claims in the days following the investigation have since was called into question. (For example, she told The Washington Post last month that she and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran allowed a Justice Department official to open boxes and flip through documents in June, a claim that prosecutors now say is untrue.) However, another person familiar with the room, who like several others interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal case, agreed that there was only one key to the lock on the closet door. A single locked door—even one with only one key—doesn’t meet nearly the exacting specifications required by federal regulations for the physical storage of classified documents. Documents classified at the top secret level, for example, are required to be stored in a “security container” approved by the General Services Administration. The container must be inspected every two hours by an authorized person to check for top secret material or have an intrusion alarm that meets specific requirements. The Justice Department official who toured the room in June wrote an email to Corcoran five days later to complain that he did not meet the requirements of the law. “As I previously told you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized to store classified information,” wrote Jay Bratt, head of the Department of Justice’s Counterintelligence and Export Control division, according to court documents. “Therefore, it appears that from the time the classified documents were removed from the secure White House facility and moved to Mar-a-Lago on or about January 20, 2021, they have not been properly handled or stored in an appropriate location.” Bratt asked that the warehouse be “secured” and that all boxes moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago “be kept in this room in their present condition until further notice.” Experts said security at the Spanish-style club has long been a headache. The facility has served as a frequent residence for Trump and his family during the winter months, even while he was president. But it also has tennis courts, a dining hall, two swimming pools, a spa and beach facilities, all open to members and their guests. Its giant ballroom and other larger areas are often booked for large parties and political and charity fundraisers, all open to even more guests, some of them foreign nationals. Since Trump left office, Republican candidates have also flocked to the club for official events, to grace Trump and try to secure his support. Political donors have also flowed in. People who have visited the club since Trump left office said they were allowed in without so much as an ID check. “I think Mar-a-Lago is a counterintelligence nightmare,” said Joel Brenner, former head of U.S. counterintelligence under the director of National Intelligence and former inspector general of the National Security Agency, citing the flow of hundreds of people, the presence of foreign nationals and Trump’s longstanding carelessness with national secrets. A person familiar with the club’s operations who spoke on condition of anonymity described regular movement from the club’s premises to the basement and back. “This is a working property,” this person said. “There’s a kitchen and a guy who makes pastries and a liquor cabinet. There is a restaurant here. You see activity. A guy who gets vodka to bring to the bar. One person will get cupcakes to bring upstairs.” Trump and the Mar-a-Lago papers: a timeline

Mixing business and pleasure Mar-a-Lago’s 17 acres stretches across the island of Palm Beach, from the Intracoastal Waterway to the Atlantic Ocean. It was opened in 1927 as a private estate by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress who was at the time one of the richest women in the world. Post gave the estate its name, which means “From Sea to Lake.” In 1973, he donated the 128-room house to the US government, intending it to be a winter White House, but the government deemed it too expensive to maintain. and handed it over to the private Post Foundation. Trump bought the property from the foundation in 1985 for the bargain price of $5 million, plus an additional $3 million for his European furniture collection. After using it as a private home for about a decade, Trump turned the property into a club in 1995, opening the doors to paid members, their guests and other attendees at various events. The original house had a basement accessed by a spiral staircase at the north end. Workers soon realized a clubhouse would need much more storage space and began a project to extend the basement under the south end of the house as well, said the former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid targeting Trump supporters. . Then the space below the parlor and the attached warehouse at the heart of the FBI controversy was built. After Trump’s election, he was eager to use the house as the winter presidential residence — a cozy weekend retreat for him and his family. The visits had the added benefit of invaluable exposure to his private business, which operated during his presidency as before. Trump has long relied on temporary foreign workers to keep the club humming during the winter months, known locally as The Season, a practice that didn’t end while he was president or after. (The club is closed to members each year during Florida’s swampy summer months from Mother’s Day to Halloween.) According to documents filed with the Department of Labor, the club received permission to hire 87 foreign waiters, cooks and housekeepers for the season that started last fall and ended this spring. The company has asked to hire 92 more to start in October. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a question about how foreign workers are screened. Brenner, formerly of the counterintelligence agency, said the US government has established special rules to prevent foreign nationals from accessing classified documents. He speculated that Mar-a-Lago’s foreign work…

title: “Deep Within The Bustling Mar A Lago A Warehouse Where Secrets Were Hidden Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-18” author: “Charles Fontana”

Comment The ornate centerpiece of the historic Mar-a-Lago estate that Donald Trump bought on the cheap in 1985 is a spacious, elegant living room with a gold ceiling and a massive stone fireplace. Directly below is a much more modest open space with a concrete floor. Excavated in the foundation of the early 20th-century building shortly after Trump bought the space, a former employee said, it was carved out to create more space to store tables, chairs, umbrellas — the things necessary to complete the conversion. of Trump in what was once a large single-family residence in a private club for 500 members. In the southeast corner of that area, behind a plain door, is a large closet-like space that workers once called “the mold room” in honor of the molds left in the corner, the former employee said. Today, employees think of the room more like the former president’s personal closet, one said. It is here, in this windowless corner, where some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets are said to have been kept. The room plays a leading role in the Justice Department’s indictment of its interactions with Trump and his lawyers, including the partially unsealed affidavit that accompanied the FBI’s request to investigate Mar-a-Lago last month. “STORAGE ROOM,” that document called it, explaining that the space it did not meet the strict standards outlined in federal regulations for housing highly classified documents. Trump team may have hidden, transported classified documents, Justice Department says Court filings say a top Justice Department official and a team of FBI agents were allowed to tour the warehouse when they visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to pick up classified documents collected by Trump’s lawyers in response to a subpoena from grand jury. Trump’s lawyer said the room was where they would find all the documents that had been moved from the White House to Florida after Trump left office. Two months later, agents returned with a court-approved search warrant and seized more than two dozen boxes of documents and various other items collected from the former president’s warehouse and office. The raid re-exposed the potential dangers of keeping highly sensitive material at a club that hosts weddings, galas and other large events, where foreigners are common and many employees — as well as some guests — are foreign nationals. It’s still unclear why Trump chose the basement storage facility to store highly sensitive documents, nor who exactly had access to the documents stored there — or who could have if they tried. Representatives for Trump and his company did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s lawyers revealed that the Justice Department sought surveillance video from the club in late June. people familiar with the matter said the video showed various people walking in and out of the larger storage area. People close to Trump said various Mar-a-Lago and Trump executives had access to that space below the public lounge. Access to the cabinet where the documents were kept was more restricted, they said. “It’s a very limited number of people who have access down there,” Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb told Fox News host Laura Ingraham days after the FBI probe. “Certainly Mar-a-Lago is safe, in and of itself. It’s just hard to get into the band. Then it was a locked door. Going back to the basement, there is security down there, only certain staff can go down there.’ “And then,” he added, “there is only one key.”

A security “nightmare”. Bob did not answer subsequent questions about the key – including where it was kept and who controlled access to it. Some of her other claims in the days following the investigation have since was called into question. (For example, she told The Washington Post last month that she and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran allowed a Justice Department official to open boxes and flip through documents in June, a claim that prosecutors now say is untrue.) However, another person familiar with the room, who like several others interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal case, agreed that there was only one key to the lock on the closet door. A single locked door—even one with only one key—doesn’t meet nearly the exacting specifications required by federal regulations for the physical storage of classified documents. Documents classified at the top secret level, for example, are required to be stored in a “security container” approved by the General Services Administration. The container must be inspected every two hours by an authorized person to check for top secret material or have an intrusion alarm that meets specific requirements. The Justice Department official who toured the room in June wrote an email to Corcoran five days later to complain that he did not meet the requirements of the law. “As I previously told you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized to store classified information,” wrote Jay Bratt, head of the Department of Justice’s Counterintelligence and Export Control division, according to court documents. “Therefore, it appears that from the time the classified documents were removed from the secure White House facility and moved to Mar-a-Lago on or about January 20, 2021, they have not been properly handled or stored in an appropriate location.” Bratt asked that the warehouse be “secured” and that all boxes moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago “be kept in this room in their present condition until further notice.” Experts said security at the Spanish-style club has long been a headache. The facility has served as a frequent residence for Trump and his family during the winter months, even while he was president. But it also has tennis courts, a dining hall, two swimming pools, a spa and beach facilities, all open to members and their guests. Its giant ballroom and other larger areas are often booked for large parties and political and charity fundraisers, all open to even more guests, some of them foreign nationals. Since Trump left office, Republican candidates have also flocked to the club for official events, to grace Trump and try to secure his support. Political donors have also flowed in. People who have visited the club since Trump left office said they were allowed in without so much as an ID check. “I think Mar-a-Lago is a counterintelligence nightmare,” said Joel Brenner, former head of U.S. counterintelligence under the director of National Intelligence and former inspector general of the National Security Agency, citing the flow of hundreds of people, the presence of foreign nationals and Trump’s longstanding carelessness with national secrets. A person familiar with the club’s operations who spoke on condition of anonymity described regular movement from the club’s premises to the basement and back. “This is a working property,” this person said. “There’s a kitchen and a guy who makes pastries and a liquor cabinet. There is a restaurant here. You see activity. A guy who gets vodka to bring to the bar. One person will get cupcakes to bring upstairs.” Trump and the Mar-a-Lago papers: a timeline

Mixing business and pleasure Mar-a-Lago’s 17 acres stretches across the island of Palm Beach, from the Intracoastal Waterway to the Atlantic Ocean. It was opened in 1927 as a private estate by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress who was at the time one of the richest women in the world. Post gave the estate its name, which means “From Sea to Lake.” In 1973, he donated the 128-room house to the US government, intending it to be a winter White House, but the government deemed it too expensive to maintain. and handed it over to the private Post Foundation. Trump bought the property from the foundation in 1985 for the bargain price of $5 million, plus an additional $3 million for his European furniture collection. After using it as a private home for about a decade, Trump turned the property into a club in 1995, opening the doors to paid members, their guests and other attendees at various events. The original house had a basement accessed by a spiral staircase at the north end. Workers soon realized a clubhouse would need much more storage space and began a project to extend the basement under the south end of the house as well, said the former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid targeting Trump supporters. . Then the space below the parlor and the attached warehouse at the heart of the FBI controversy was built. After Trump’s election, he was eager to use the house as the winter presidential residence — a cozy weekend retreat for him and his family. The visits had the added benefit of invaluable exposure to his private business, which operated during his presidency as before. Trump has long relied on temporary foreign workers to keep the club humming during the winter months, known locally as The Season, a practice that didn’t end while he was president or after. (The club is closed to members each year during Florida’s swampy summer months from Mother’s Day to Halloween.) According to documents filed with the Department of Labor, the club received permission to hire 87 foreign waiters, cooks and housekeepers for the season that started last fall and ended this spring. The company has asked to hire 92 more to start in October. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a question about how foreign workers are screened. Brenner, formerly of the counterintelligence agency, said the US government has established special rules to prevent foreign nationals from accessing classified documents. He speculated that Mar-a-Lago’s foreign work…

title: “Deep Within The Bustling Mar A Lago A Warehouse Where Secrets Were Hidden Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-02” author: “James Tucker”

Comment The ornate centerpiece of the historic Mar-a-Lago estate that Donald Trump bought on the cheap in 1985 is a spacious, elegant living room with a gold ceiling and a massive stone fireplace. Directly below is a much more modest open space with a concrete floor. Excavated in the foundation of the early 20th-century building shortly after Trump bought the space, a former employee said, it was carved out to create more space to store tables, chairs, umbrellas — the things necessary to complete the conversion. of Trump in what was once a large single-family residence in a private club for 500 members. In the southeast corner of that area, behind a plain door, is a large closet-like space that workers once called “the mold room” in honor of the molds left in the corner, the former employee said. Today, employees think of the room more like the former president’s personal closet, one said. It is here, in this windowless corner, where some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets are said to have been kept. The room plays a leading role in the Justice Department’s indictment of its interactions with Trump and his lawyers, including the partially unsealed affidavit that accompanied the FBI’s request to investigate Mar-a-Lago last month. “STORAGE ROOM,” that document called it, explaining that the space it did not meet the strict standards outlined in federal regulations for housing highly classified documents. Trump team may have hidden, transported classified documents, Justice Department says Court filings say a top Justice Department official and a team of FBI agents were allowed to tour the warehouse when they visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to pick up classified documents collected by Trump’s lawyers in response to a subpoena from grand jury. Trump’s lawyer said the room was where they would find all the documents that had been moved from the White House to Florida after Trump left office. Two months later, agents returned with a court-approved search warrant and seized more than two dozen boxes of documents and various other items collected from the former president’s warehouse and office. The raid re-exposed the potential dangers of keeping highly sensitive material at a club that hosts weddings, galas and other large events, where foreigners are common and many employees — as well as some guests — are foreign nationals. It’s still unclear why Trump chose the basement storage facility to store highly sensitive documents, nor who exactly had access to the documents stored there — or who could have if they tried. Representatives for Trump and his company did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s lawyers revealed that the Justice Department sought surveillance video from the club in late June. people familiar with the matter said the video showed various people walking in and out of the larger storage area. People close to Trump said various Mar-a-Lago and Trump executives had access to that space below the public lounge. Access to the cabinet where the documents were kept was more restricted, they said. “It’s a very limited number of people who have access down there,” Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb told Fox News host Laura Ingraham days after the FBI probe. “Certainly Mar-a-Lago is safe, in and of itself. It’s just hard to get into the band. Then it was a locked door. Going back to the basement, there is security down there, only certain staff can go down there.’ “And then,” he added, “there is only one key.”

A security “nightmare”. Bob did not answer subsequent questions about the key – including where it was kept and who controlled access to it. Some of her other claims in the days following the investigation have since was called into question. (For example, she told The Washington Post last month that she and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran allowed a Justice Department official to open boxes and flip through documents in June, a claim that prosecutors now say is untrue.) However, another person familiar with the room, who like several others interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal case, agreed that there was only one key to the lock on the closet door. A single locked door—even one with only one key—doesn’t meet nearly the exacting specifications required by federal regulations for the physical storage of classified documents. Documents classified at the top secret level, for example, are required to be stored in a “security container” approved by the General Services Administration. The container must be inspected every two hours by an authorized person to check for top secret material or have an intrusion alarm that meets specific requirements. The Justice Department official who toured the room in June wrote an email to Corcoran five days later to complain that he did not meet the requirements of the law. “As I previously told you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized to store classified information,” wrote Jay Bratt, head of the Department of Justice’s Counterintelligence and Export Control division, according to court documents. “Therefore, it appears that from the time the classified documents were removed from the secure White House facility and moved to Mar-a-Lago on or about January 20, 2021, they have not been properly handled or stored in an appropriate location.” Bratt asked that the warehouse be “secured” and that all boxes moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago “be kept in this room in their present condition until further notice.” Experts said security at the Spanish-style club has long been a headache. The facility has served as a frequent residence for Trump and his family during the winter months, even while he was president. But it also has tennis courts, a dining hall, two swimming pools, a spa and beach facilities, all open to members and their guests. Its giant ballroom and other larger areas are often booked for large parties and political and charity fundraisers, all open to even more guests, some of them foreign nationals. Since Trump left office, Republican candidates have also flocked to the club for official events, to grace Trump and try to secure his support. Political donors have also flowed in. People who have visited the club since Trump left office said they were allowed in without so much as an ID check. “I think Mar-a-Lago is a counterintelligence nightmare,” said Joel Brenner, former head of U.S. counterintelligence under the director of National Intelligence and former inspector general of the National Security Agency, citing the flow of hundreds of people, the presence of foreign nationals and Trump’s longstanding carelessness with national secrets. A person familiar with the club’s operations who spoke on condition of anonymity described regular movement from the club’s premises to the basement and back. “This is a working property,” this person said. “There’s a kitchen and a guy who makes pastries and a liquor cabinet. There is a restaurant here. You see activity. A guy who gets vodka to bring to the bar. One person will get cupcakes to bring upstairs.” Trump and the Mar-a-Lago papers: a timeline

Mixing business and pleasure Mar-a-Lago’s 17 acres stretches across the island of Palm Beach, from the Intracoastal Waterway to the Atlantic Ocean. It was opened in 1927 as a private estate by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress who was at the time one of the richest women in the world. Post gave the estate its name, which means “From Sea to Lake.” In 1973, he donated the 128-room house to the US government, intending it to be a winter White House, but the government deemed it too expensive to maintain. and handed it over to the private Post Foundation. Trump bought the property from the foundation in 1985 for the bargain price of $5 million, plus an additional $3 million for his European furniture collection. After using it as a private home for about a decade, Trump turned the property into a club in 1995, opening the doors to paid members, their guests and other attendees at various events. The original house had a basement accessed by a spiral staircase at the north end. Workers soon realized a clubhouse would need much more storage space and began a project to extend the basement under the south end of the house as well, said the former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid targeting Trump supporters. . Then the space below the parlor and the attached warehouse at the heart of the FBI controversy was built. After Trump’s election, he was eager to use the house as the winter presidential residence — a cozy weekend retreat for him and his family. The visits had the added benefit of invaluable exposure to his private business, which operated during his presidency as before. Trump has long relied on temporary foreign workers to keep the club humming during the winter months, known locally as The Season, a practice that didn’t end while he was president or after. (The club is closed to members each year during Florida’s swampy summer months from Mother’s Day to Halloween.) According to documents filed with the Department of Labor, the club received permission to hire 87 foreign waiters, cooks and housekeepers for the season that started last fall and ended this spring. The company has asked to hire 92 more to start in October. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a question about how foreign workers are screened. Brenner, formerly of the counterintelligence agency, said the US government has established special rules to prevent foreign nationals from accessing classified documents. He speculated that Mar-a-Lago’s foreign work…

title: “Deep Within The Bustling Mar A Lago A Warehouse Where Secrets Were Hidden Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-11” author: “Sue Brown”

Comment The ornate centerpiece of the historic Mar-a-Lago estate that Donald Trump bought on the cheap in 1985 is a spacious, elegant living room with a gold ceiling and a massive stone fireplace. Directly below is a much more modest open space with a concrete floor. Excavated in the foundation of the early 20th-century building shortly after Trump bought the space, a former employee said, it was carved out to create more space to store tables, chairs, umbrellas — the things necessary to complete the conversion. of Trump in what was once a large single-family residence in a private club for 500 members. In the southeast corner of that area, behind a plain door, is a large closet-like space that workers once called “the mold room” in honor of the molds left in the corner, the former employee said. Today, employees think of the room more like the former president’s personal closet, one said. It is here, in this windowless corner, where some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets are said to have been kept. The room plays a leading role in the Justice Department’s indictment of its interactions with Trump and his lawyers, including the partially unsealed affidavit that accompanied the FBI’s request to investigate Mar-a-Lago last month. “STORAGE ROOM,” that document called it, explaining that the space it did not meet the strict standards outlined in federal regulations for housing highly classified documents. Trump team may have hidden, transported classified documents, Justice Department says Court filings say a top Justice Department official and a team of FBI agents were allowed to tour the warehouse when they visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to pick up classified documents collected by Trump’s lawyers in response to a subpoena from grand jury. Trump’s lawyer said the room was where they would find all the documents that had been moved from the White House to Florida after Trump left office. Two months later, agents returned with a court-approved search warrant and seized more than two dozen boxes of documents and various other items collected from the former president’s warehouse and office. The raid re-exposed the potential dangers of keeping highly sensitive material at a club that hosts weddings, galas and other large events, where foreigners are common and many employees — as well as some guests — are foreign nationals. It’s still unclear why Trump chose the basement storage facility to store highly sensitive documents, nor who exactly had access to the documents stored there — or who could have if they tried. Representatives for Trump and his company did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s lawyers revealed that the Justice Department sought surveillance video from the club in late June. people familiar with the matter said the video showed various people walking in and out of the larger storage area. People close to Trump said various Mar-a-Lago and Trump executives had access to that space below the public lounge. Access to the cabinet where the documents were kept was more restricted, they said. “It’s a very limited number of people who have access down there,” Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb told Fox News host Laura Ingraham days after the FBI probe. “Certainly Mar-a-Lago is safe, in and of itself. It’s just hard to get into the band. Then it was a locked door. Going back to the basement, there is security down there, only certain staff can go down there.’ “And then,” he added, “there is only one key.”

A security “nightmare”. Bob did not answer subsequent questions about the key – including where it was kept and who controlled access to it. Some of her other claims in the days following the investigation have since was called into question. (For example, she told The Washington Post last month that she and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran allowed a Justice Department official to open boxes and flip through documents in June, a claim that prosecutors now say is untrue.) However, another person familiar with the room, who like several others interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal case, agreed that there was only one key to the lock on the closet door. A single locked door—even one with only one key—doesn’t meet nearly the exacting specifications required by federal regulations for the physical storage of classified documents. Documents classified at the top secret level, for example, are required to be stored in a “security container” approved by the General Services Administration. The container must be inspected every two hours by an authorized person to check for top secret material or have an intrusion alarm that meets specific requirements. The Justice Department official who toured the room in June wrote an email to Corcoran five days later to complain that he did not meet the requirements of the law. “As I previously told you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized to store classified information,” wrote Jay Bratt, head of the Department of Justice’s Counterintelligence and Export Control division, according to court documents. “Therefore, it appears that from the time the classified documents were removed from the secure White House facility and moved to Mar-a-Lago on or about January 20, 2021, they have not been properly handled or stored in an appropriate location.” Bratt asked that the warehouse be “secured” and that all boxes moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago “be kept in this room in their present condition until further notice.” Experts said security at the Spanish-style club has long been a headache. The facility has served as a frequent residence for Trump and his family during the winter months, even while he was president. But it also has tennis courts, a dining hall, two swimming pools, a spa and beach facilities, all open to members and their guests. Its giant ballroom and other larger areas are often booked for large parties and political and charity fundraisers, all open to even more guests, some of them foreign nationals. Since Trump left office, Republican candidates have also flocked to the club for official events, to grace Trump and try to secure his support. Political donors have also flowed in. People who have visited the club since Trump left office said they were allowed in without so much as an ID check. “I think Mar-a-Lago is a counterintelligence nightmare,” said Joel Brenner, former head of U.S. counterintelligence under the director of National Intelligence and former inspector general of the National Security Agency, citing the flow of hundreds of people, the presence of foreign nationals and Trump’s longstanding carelessness with national secrets. A person familiar with the club’s operations who spoke on condition of anonymity described regular movement from the club’s premises to the basement and back. “This is a working property,” this person said. “There’s a kitchen and a guy who makes pastries and a liquor cabinet. There is a restaurant here. You see activity. A guy who gets vodka to bring to the bar. One person will get cupcakes to bring upstairs.” Trump and the Mar-a-Lago papers: a timeline

Mixing business and pleasure Mar-a-Lago’s 17 acres stretches across the island of Palm Beach, from the Intracoastal Waterway to the Atlantic Ocean. It was opened in 1927 as a private estate by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress who was at the time one of the richest women in the world. Post gave the estate its name, which means “From Sea to Lake.” In 1973, he donated the 128-room house to the US government, intending it to be a winter White House, but the government deemed it too expensive to maintain. and handed it over to the private Post Foundation. Trump bought the property from the foundation in 1985 for the bargain price of $5 million, plus an additional $3 million for his European furniture collection. After using it as a private home for about a decade, Trump turned the property into a club in 1995, opening the doors to paid members, their guests and other attendees at various events. The original house had a basement accessed by a spiral staircase at the north end. Workers soon realized a clubhouse would need much more storage space and began a project to extend the basement under the south end of the house as well, said the former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid targeting Trump supporters. . Then the space below the parlor and the attached warehouse at the heart of the FBI controversy was built. After Trump’s election, he was eager to use the house as the winter presidential residence — a cozy weekend retreat for him and his family. The visits had the added benefit of invaluable exposure to his private business, which operated during his presidency as before. Trump has long relied on temporary foreign workers to keep the club humming during the winter months, known locally as The Season, a practice that didn’t end while he was president or after. (The club is closed to members each year during Florida’s swampy summer months from Mother’s Day to Halloween.) According to documents filed with the Department of Labor, the club received permission to hire 87 foreign waiters, cooks and housekeepers for the season that started last fall and ended this spring. The company has asked to hire 92 more to start in October. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a question about how foreign workers are screened. Brenner, formerly of the counterintelligence agency, said the US government has established special rules to prevent foreign nationals from accessing classified documents. He speculated that Mar-a-Lago’s foreign work…