במערכת הביטחון בישראל מודאגים נוכח העובדה שבכתב האישום שהוגש נגד דונאלד טראמפ נטען כי המסמכים שגנב מהבית הלבן בסיום כהונתו ונמצאו באחוזתו, כשחלקם בארגזים בשירותים ובמחסנים שלכל עובד היתה גישה חופשית אליהם, מתייחסים למידע סודי ורגיש במיוחד "הנוגע ליכולות ההגנה והנשק של ארצות הברית ומדינות זרות כאחד". ה-FBI ומשרד המשפטים לא פירטו את שמות המדינות וישראל נוקטת אמצעים כדי לברר במה מדובר ולהקטין ככל האפשר את הנזק שנגרם או עלול להיגרם אם אכן החששות יתממשו.
שני בכירי הביטחון הישראליים, האחד מהמוסד והשני מחיל המודיעין של צה"ל צוטטו בנושא זה כמי שטענו כי "זו אפשרות סבירה בהחלט שחלק מהמסמכים עוסקים בישראל ויכולותיה, אולי אפילו על תוכנית הגרעין שלה", החששות נובעים משיתוף הפעולה ההדוק לאורך השנים בין ישראל לארה"ב בנושאי צבא וביטחון. נציגי המוסד, המודיעין הצבאי, חיל האוויר, אגפי המבצעים והתכנון של צה"ל, השב"כ ומשרד הביטחון נפגשים מעת לעת עם עמיתיהם בארה"ב, וכך גם נציגים מיחידות קומנדו ישראליות מיוחדות כמו סיירת. מתקל, שלדג ושייטת 13.
הם מתאמנים יחד, מחליפים מידע, עורכים הערכות מצב ומדווחים זה לזה על נושאים רגישים. אם מידע כזה רבץ לו שנים ללא פיקוח הדוק באחוזתו של טראמפ בפלורידה, אין לדעת למי התגלגל ולאן הגיע כבר עתה.
טראמפ, המתמודד לקדנציה נוספת בבית הלבן, מואשם בכמה תיקים פליליים שהחמור שבהם הוא כתב האישום שהוגש נגדו בפלורידה ב-37 סעיפי אישום בהם ריגול ואחזקת מסמכים מסווגים בביתו, ללא סמכות וללא השגחה. ארגזי המידע נגנבו על ידי טראמפ לאחר שהפסיד בבחירות.
עניין מרכזי
הידיעה אודות החששות הישראליים מתפרסמת בהרחבה בפליפבורד – מסגרת החדשות הכלל עולמית של אפל המגיעה למיליארדי מחזיקי אייפונים, אייפדים ומקבוקים בעולם כולו. מסתבר שרק הישראלים אינם מודעים למתחולל.
Top brass in the Israeli defense establishment, particularly in the IDF Intelligence Corps and the Mossad espionage agency, are concerned that secret documents seized from former U.S. President Donald Trump include material whose exposure has damaged Israel’s security.
Last week Trump was indicted for allegedly having more than 300 classified documents in his possession without permission or authority. Trump was arrested and appeared in federal court in Miami on Tuesday on the indictment – the first time that an American president has been indicted on federal charges.
He pleaded not guilty to allegations including deliberately concealing classified documents, concealing information relating to national security, refusing to return a classified document, involvement in a plot to conceal information, obstruction of justice and making a false statement.
The first batch of papers was provided after illegal delays to the National Archives in January 2022. A second batch was returned to the Justice Department by Trump’s aides. A third cache was confiscated in an FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August, while an additional small quantity of papers was found in other searches last year. Some of the documents allegedly taken by Trump were classified at the most restrictive level – Top Secret/Special Handling.
Navy veteran Walt Nauta, who worked as Trump’s valet – a personal assistant at the White House and later as an assistant to the former president at Mar-a-Lago – is also charged in the case. According to the indictment, Trump ordered Nauta to move boxes of classified papers prior to the search of the premises and also directed the assistant not to tell his lawyer or the FBI.
The indictment alleges that the papers relate to information “regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries.” Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department have named the countries, and it can be assumed that they will continue to insist that the information will never be revealed.
“It’s an absolutely reasonable possibility that some of the documents are about Israel and its capabilities, maybe even about its nuclear program,” two senior Israeli defense officials, one from the Mossad and the other from the IDF Intelligence Corps, have told me.
The defense establishment’s concerns regarding the documents that Trump removed from the White House stem from the close and even intimate cooperation over the years between Israel and the United States on military and security issues. Representatives of the Mossad, military intelligence, the Israel Air Force, the IDF operations and planning divisions, the Shin Bet security service and the Defense Ministry meet from time to time with their U.S. colleagues, as do representatives from special Israeli commando units such as Sayeret Matkal, Shaldag and Shayetet 13.
They train together, exchange information, conduct situation assessments and report to one another. According to foreign reports, under special circumstances, Israel and American espionage agents and commandos also engage in joint operations.
Obviously, cooperation between Israel and the United States on such matters is carried out in total secrecy, but when it comes to a president such as Trump, a boastful chatterbox who doesn’t always understand all the fine points and the significance of what he is seeing and who in the past blurted out secrets relating to America’s national security, the results could be devastating.
For example, in April 2017, the American president reportedly told the president of the Philippines that two U.S. nuclear submarines were off the coast of North Korea. About a month later, Trump reportedly bragged at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, that he had intelligence information about ISIS and that the information had been obtained by “a Middle Eastern ally.” Subsequently, American media reported that he was referring to Israel and that the leak had endangered the source of the information.
According to one report, it was an agent whom the Mossad had enlisted, but the report was not reliable. The information about ISIS had been obtained by technological means. The operation was a huge success thwarting ISIS many terrorist plots world-wide including Israel and Jewish targets. The U.S. and Western European countries thanked the Mossad for its achievements.
The revelation of the details prompted outrage in the Israeli intelligence community, which even considered reducing cooperation. On the other hand, Israel needs the United States more, and therefore the anger was mainly reflected in increased caution in providing intelligence information to the United States.,
In fact, the indictment against Trump alleges that documents that he kept at Mar-a-Lago could “put at risk … human sources [agents working in the service of the United States] … and sensitive intelligence collection methods.” According to the indictment, the documents also revealed “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for a possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack [on the United States].”
The documents allegedly taken by Trump are sowing major confusion among America’s allies. This is another in a series of major leaks in the United States over the past two decades – from the Wikileaks case to leaks by Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and the alleged leak of Defense Department documents by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard. The leaks have perceived the U.S. by its allies as a nation which cannot be trusted to keep secrets.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials knew when Trump entered the White House that they would have to walk on eggshells in connection with military information. On one hand, the president is the commander in chief and has the right to receive the information. But when it comes to Trump, care must be exercised regarding what he is told. In an interview, former CIA director John Brennan once told me that there were consultations in advance of Trump’s inauguration in which officials deliberated about whether to inform him and share with him top national security secrets.
