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Bathrooms in Mar-a-Lago: Is this how state secrets are supposed to be kept?

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U.S. Justice Department / Justice Department via REUTERS

The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray, has indirectly criticized how former US President Donald Trump has kept secret government documents. "I don't want to comment on the pending case, but I do want to say that there are certain regulations about where classified information is to be kept," Wray said Wednesday at a hearing in the U.S. Congress.

Such classified information would have to be stored in facilities that meet certain security requirements – so-called Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIFs). A solid lock should seal off the room and access should only be granted to personnel who are appropriately accredited.

"Ballrooms, bathrooms and bedrooms are not SCIFs," said FBI Director Wray in response to a lawmaker's question as to whether these places were suitable places for storing classified information.

She was referring to the affair of secret government documents, in which Trump had been indicted in mid-June before a federal court in the US metropolis of Miami. The Republican kept government documents with the highest level of secrecy after his term in office at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and did not return them when requested.

Trump pleaded "not guilty." The indictment states that Trump kept boxes of classified information in his bedroom, bathroom, shower, ballroom and storage room.

Until now, the ex-president's defense strategy has been that he did not know that these documents were secret. But recently, CNN released an audio recording in which Trump can be heard bragging about the documents in front of interlocutors.

Specifically, it seemed to be about a secret Pentagon document on an attack on Iran, which Trump showed around. He apparently wanted to prove to his listeners that he had never given the order to work out such a plan of attack. This was solely the case with the military, which presented him with this paper.

"This is secret information, look," he explained to his guests, and continued: "Isn't that interesting? It's so cool."

oka/dpa