Former CIA Director Michael Hayden seemed to endorse the execution of former president Donald Trump on Thursday after a report indicated FBI agents were searching the former president’s residence for classified documents related to nuclear weapons.
Hayden responded to a tweet on Thursday by presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who noted that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Americans who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union, were “convicted for giving U.S. nuclear secrets to Moscow, and were executed June 1953.”
Hayden, who previously served as director of the National Security Agency and the CIA under former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, replied to the tweet: “Sounds about right.”
The tweets, while making no mention of Trump specifically, come after the Washington Post reported that classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the files FBI agents were looking for when they searched Trump’s residence on Monday. The paper’s sources did not say if such documents were recovered in the search. The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment on the report.
Trump’s attorney, Christina Bobb, said Thursday: “I have not specifically spoken to the president about what nuclear materials may or may not have been in there. I do not believe there were any in there.”
The search warrant for the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago earlier this week reveals law enforcement is investigating former president Donald Trump for removal or destruction of records, obstruction of an investigation and violating the Espionage Act, according to a new Politico report.
Meanwhile, a list of items removed from the property reviewed by the Wall Street Journal shows the FBI recovered eleven sets of classified documents during the search, including some top secret documents that should only have been available in special government facilities.
FBI agents recovered one set of documents that were labeled “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” meaning the documents included top-secret or sensitive compartmented information.
The list also included four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of confidential documents, according to the report. The Wall Street Journal reported that the list did not offer any details about the substance of the documents.
