In the mid-Eighties, I served as command safety supervisor aboard the ballistic missile nuclear submarine USS Stonewall Jackson. My job was to make sure the secure dealing with and safety of the numerous quantity of categorized info onboard.
I used to be additionally the highest secret management officer, or TSCO, accountable for controlling all prime secret, or TS, materials. Top secret materials is “info, the unauthorized disclosure of which fairly might be anticipated to trigger exceptionally grave injury to the nationwide safety.” Top secret materials can be additional categorized as delicate compartmented info, or SCI. TS/SCI is the crown jewel of the intel world as a result of it contains the strategies and sources of the fabric.
The prime secret management officer maintains a registry for recording receipt, switch, transmission, and destruction of all op secret media, and he doesn’t have the authority himself to breed any prime secret doc.
All prime secret materials is required to be inventoried no less than yearly. On my submarine, we did it quarterly. Taking stock concerned bodily accounting for every switch/receipt signature, as the continual chain of hand-to-hand transfers required a cautious report of everybody to whom the highest secret info was disclosed.
There are related necessities in each department of presidency for safely controlling prime secret paperwork. When a member of congress is supplied entry to a sop secret doc, the courier comes into the workplace with a locked briefcase, shuts the door, unlocks the briefcase, watches the congressman as he reads it, and information his having learn it. The courier then locks it again into the briefcase earlier than leaving and returning it to its locked secure.
I say all of this to point out how correctly dealt with prime secret info doesn’t merely go lacking and wind up in President Biden’s personal residence in Delaware or the Penn Biden Center, at President Trump’s Mara Largo dwelling or in Vice President Pence’s dwelling — not with out senior safety personnel within the govt or legislative branches actively concealing the chain of custody of prime secret paperwork, which is treasonous.
Biden’s safety woes are substantial. Six days earlier than the midterm election, Biden’s private attorneys discovered TS/SCI paperwork from the Obama Administration on the Penn Biden Center. Those places of work didn’t even open till 2018. Where have been these TS/SCI paperwork between January 2017 and February 2018? Who had entry to them? Why have been they not reported misplaced in an annual stock? Why did the Biden administration sit on this information for 2 months? That final sentence is clearly rhetorical.
Additional categorized paperwork have been discovered within the storage of Biden’s dwelling in Wilmington, Del., sitting subsequent to his Corvette. Some paperwork are pre-2008, when Biden was nonetheless a senator. This is similar home that Hunter Biden was renting from his dad for $50,000 per 30 days. Who had entry to the home and to these paperwork throughout this time? After the TS/SCI was found within the Penn Biden Center, why did Biden ship his private attorneys with no safety clearances to seek for extra categorized paperwork?
The Biden administration pleads harmless as a result of these categorized paperwork have been “inadvertently misplaced.” Hillary made the identical excuse throughout her e-mail server scandal. However, all safety manuals state that if categorized info is “knowingly, willfully, or negligently” compromised or disclosed, it’s a criminal offense. Carelessness isn’t a protection.
President Trump’s case is difficult. Yes, as President, he did have the authority to declassify something, reckless as which will be. I’m guessing all presidents preserve sure paperwork to cowl their backs.
However, citizen Trump can’t simply stroll off with prime secret info nonetheless marked and managed as prime secret. If Trump declassified the paperwork as he says he did, they might not be marked categorized and there would be documentation by a TSCO someplace saying that he did so. Where is the TSCO’s signature proving these paperwork have been declassified? Where was the annual audit of these paperwork?
We’ve had navy members incarcerated in Leavenworth not for spying, however for negligent mishandling of categorized data. If Biden, Hillary, Trump, and Pence weren’t within the ruling political class, they might be jailed. Illegal dealing with of categorized paperwork that might “trigger exceptionally grave injury to the nationwide safety” has, like a lot else, been redefined to make room for these in energy to commit high-crimes and get away with it.
Courtney served 20 years as a nuclear engineering officer aboard submarines and 15 years as a graduate college teacher. A political unbiased, he spends his time taking part in with his seven grandchildren in Moscow.
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