Former President Donald Trump may have sold a binder with classified information to Russia, his estranged niece, Mary Trump, alleged on Friday.
The binder in question contained raw intelligence that the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies collected on Russia's alleged election interference in 2016, when Trump beat his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for the presidency, among other documents, according to Reuters who spoke with a source familiar with the matter.
Russia has denied interfering in the election, while the former president has repeatedly called the FBI's investigation into the alleged election interference a hoax.
In January 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment that found Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government disparaged Clinton through a disinformation and cyberattack campaign to better "Trump's election chances."
The whereabouts of the binder are currently unknown as it went missing during the last days of Trump's presidency, Reuters' source said. CNN was the first to report the missing binder and The New York Times has also reported on it.
Mary Trump, who has emerged as one of Trump's fiercest critics, wrote about what could have happened to the missing binder in a Friday blog post.
One of those possibilities was that the documents inside the binder "were sold or given to Russia," according to her blog post. Mary Trump warned that if this was the case, whoever sold the documents could receive life in prison under the Espionage Act if they were caught.
"Let me put it this way, if the government ever had evidence Donald Trump purposely handed classified info to a hostile power, he would never see the light of day again," she wrote, who also added that the documents could have also been destroyed, lost, or kept by someone.
There is no evidence showing that Trump sold anything to Russia. Trump's critics have long accused him of working with Russia, but various investigations have not confirmed that.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek in a Saturday email that it is "unprofessional" to ask if the binder was sold to Russia. "What proof do you have?" he asked.
Cheung said Mary Trump has "shown explicit bias" and "has a vendetta against President Trump."
Trump, who is the GOP frontrunner for the 2024 presidential election, is already in a slew of legal trouble over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. In June, Trump was indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on 37 counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, in relation to the documents that were found at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in August 2022. The former president, meanwhile, has maintained his innocence in the case.
Newsweek reached out to Mary Trump via email for comment.
Who Had the Binder Last?
While it's unclear whose possession the binder was in when it disappeared, Trump had asked the CIA to send the binder to the White House just before he left the Oval Office in 2021, Reuters' source said. Trump wanted to declassify materials in the binder related to the FBI's investigation into Russia's alleged election interference, according to the source.
A federal court document filed in August by journalist John Solomon, who Trump appointed to be a representative authorized to access his presidential records in the National Archives, gives some insight into who had their hands on the missing binder.
According to the document, Mark Meadows, who served as Trump's White House chief of staff during the last nine months of his presidency, was involved in handling the binder and working with Solomon to release the materials that Trump wanted declassified.
On January 19, 2021, just one day before Trump left office, Meadows invited Solomon to the White House to review declassified pages and discuss its public release, according to the court document.
However, Solomon, who was provided copies of the declassified pages, later received a call from the White House asking for the copies back, so that additional redactions could be made.
"Meadows promised Solomon that he would receive the revised binder," according to the document. "This never happened."
Newsweek reached out to Conservative Partnership Institute, where Meadows is a senior partner, via email for comment. Newsweek also reached out to Just The News via email for comment from Solomon, who serves as the editor-in-chief for the news outlet.
Update 12/16/23, 11:27 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
Update 12/16/23, 11:47 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Cheung.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
fairness meter
To Rate This Article
About the writer
Rachel Dobkin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on politics. Rachel joined Newsweek in ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
