2019年夏天，就在一枚伊朗火箭在伊朗自己的一个发射场意外爆炸几个小时后，美国高级官员会见了时任总统唐纳德·特朗普分享了一张爆炸灾难性后果的非常详细的高度机密图像。
这张照片是由一颗美国卫星拍摄的，这颗卫星的真实能力是一个严格保密的秘密。但特朗普希望与世界分享它——他认为它特别“性感”，因为它被标记为机密，他的一名前顾问后来向特别顾问杰克·史密斯的调查人员回忆说，据熟悉这位前顾问声明的消息人士透露。
消息人士称，由于担心图像公开可能会损害国家安全努力，情报官员敦促特朗普推迟，直到更多知识渊博的专家能够权衡。但不到一个小时后，当至少一名情报官员在另一栋大楼里争先恐后地获取更多信息时，特朗普发布了图像到推特。
消息人士称，特朗普的一名前顾问告诉调查人员，“这太令人不安了，人们真的很生气。”。
特朗普的帖子立即遭到公众的反对:情报专家甚至国际媒体质疑美国的利益是否刚刚受到特朗普所做所为的威胁。当在白宫被问及此事时，特朗普坚称他没有发布机密信息，因为他有“绝对的权利”这么做。
虽然史密斯的大部分面积机密文件调查关注特朗普在离开白宫后如何处理机密材料，一系列前助手和顾问——包括私人侍者、新闻助理、高级国家安全官员，甚至特朗普在国家情报总监办公室的简报员——向史密斯提供了特朗普据称在任职期间如何处理和使用情报的第一手资料。
消息人士向美国广播公司(ABC News)转述的这些第一手报道强调了特朗普寻求重返白宫时可能面临的风险，这些报道正在曝光，因为他可能即将再次作为共和党在2024年总统大选中的正式提名人接受政府的正式简报。
据消息人士透露，在去年接受调查人员采访时，白宫中与特朗普关系密切的前助手和国家安全官员描述说，一位总统在收到他不想听到的情报时可能会爆发愤怒，他经常审查机密信息并将其存储在不安全的地方，而且一些前官员称他对信息披露可能造成的损害持“漫不经心的态度”。
中央情报局网站上发布的一本书描述了情报界在特朗普过渡到总统职位期间以及随后在白宫的经历，称尽管特朗普“对情报过程感到怀疑和不安全”，但他仍然“参与其中”，即使他公开抨击情报过程。
该书还指出，特朗普在总统中“独一无二”，因为在接管白宫之前，“他没有处理机密信息或与军事、外交或情报项目和行动合作的经验。”
交木片工。
据消息人士透露，正如前官员向史密斯团队描述与特朗普的会面一样，特朗普只想听取有关世界某些地区的新信息。
消息人士称，特别是史密斯的团队被告知，特朗普对听到拉丁美洲或他同样认为不重要的国家不感兴趣。消息人士称，目击者证实了此前的公开报道，即特朗普将这些地方称为“s洞国家”，并建议美国应该停止欢迎来自这些国家的移民。
今天，在总统竞选过程中，特朗普继续抱怨移民来自拉丁美洲国家和其他通过拉丁美洲部分地区到达南部边境的人。
消息人士称，前官员还告诉史密斯的团队，特朗普拒绝听取与俄罗斯有关的某些简报，称特朗普“绝对”不想听到俄罗斯的影响力行动，他无法相信俄罗斯军队已经在乌克兰境内行动-即使他自己的政府正在公开呼吁他们例行入侵该国东部地区以支持俄罗斯支持的分裂分子。
在竞选活动中，特朗普最近坚称，如果他仍然是总司令，他会阻止俄罗斯在2022年2月全面入侵乌克兰。
据消息人士透露，特朗普的一位前顾问去年曾与史密斯的团队开玩笑说，在与特朗普的会晤中提到俄罗斯就像“再次把手伸进木屑中”。
国家情报总监办公室在最近的全球评估中得出结论，俄罗斯继续对美国国家安全构成重大威胁，更广泛地说，对“基于规则的国际秩序”构成重大威胁。
消息人士称，史密斯的调查人员获悉，正如他在公开场合所做的那样，特朗普经常私下不同意美国情报界得出的结论，特别是与俄罗斯和乌克兰有关的结论，而是选择依赖其他人未经证实的说法。
消息人士称，前助手向史密斯的调查人员证实了此前媒体的报道，即特朗普几乎从未阅读过总统的每日简报，这份报告概述了机密情报和对当天最紧迫问题的分析。
据消息人士透露，特朗普更喜欢口头收到这样的总结。
特朗普的一位发言人请美国广播公司新闻部参考前总统的一份声明，他在声明中称机密文件案是“两级司法系统和违宪的选择性起诉”。
这位特别顾问的发言人拒绝向美国广播公司新闻发表评论。
就像一个垃圾抽屉
消息人士称，多名目击者告诉史密斯的团队，在特朗普担任总统期间，许多每天与特朗普互动的人都看到他将机密文件带到不安全的地点，这引起了其中一些人的担忧。
消息人士称，早在2018年，负责管理流向椭圆形办公室的文件的工作人员秘书办公室就开始向白宫人员询问丢失的文件，包括一些机密文件。
消息人士称，这名贴身男仆回忆说，他甚至一度警告工作人员秘书办公室，机密文件被装在白色盒子里从安全地点带走，最终出现在各种可能涉及的地方。
据消息人士透露，几名目击者告诉史密斯的团队，他们经常在特朗普的白宫住所看到机密文件或机密文件夹，特朗普有时会在他的卧室里存放多达30个盒子，一名贴身男仆说特朗普把这些盒子“像垃圾抽屉一样”对待。
据熟悉目击者对特别顾问所说的消息的人士透露，虽然尚不清楚特朗普住所内任何特定时间有多少箱子载有带有分类标记的文件，但目击者表示，他们经常观察到从椭圆形办公室运往他住所的箱子和文件载有分类文件。
“我不认为他尊重什么是机密信息，”消息人士援引一名前官员对调查人员说。
在特朗普执政的第一年，多家媒体报道了特朗普据称是如何暴露敏感信息的:据报道，2017年2月，他和日本时任首相在特朗普位于佛罗里达州的Mar-a-Lago庄园的拥挤餐厅吃饭时讨论了对朝鲜最新弹道导弹试验的回应，然后两个月后，特朗普在电话中告诉菲律宾总统，美国军方在朝鲜附近部署了两艘核潜艇。
据报道，接下来的一个月，川普与到访白宫的俄罗斯官员分享了有关“伊斯兰国”的高度敏感情报。
然而，一些与史密斯团队交谈的证人表示，他们并不担心特朗普担任总统期间所看到的情况。
消息人士称，在特朗普总统任期结束时担任其国家安全顾问的罗伯特·奥布莱恩告诉史密斯的团队，特朗普“一贯”妥善处理机密信息。
“《饥饿游戏》”
消息人士称，正如一些前官员向史密斯的调查人员描述的那样，与特朗普讨论最新情报可能是一项不可预测的任务。
据熟悉目击者告诉调查人员的消息人士透露，有时他会对高级国家安全或情报官员对他说的话感到非常不安，以至于会破坏整个会议。
在欧洲国际峰会之前的一系列会议中，特朗普会见了时任中央情报局局长吉娜·哈斯佩尔、时任财政部长史蒂夫·姆努钦等人，以帮助规划峰会。但消息人士称，当特朗普被告知他可能在峰会上遇到的一个人的积极方面时，特朗普“失控了”，坚称他不在乎，然后当他被告知与姆努钦有关的税务谈判的最新情况时，他再次“失控”。
消息人士称，川普随后让他的一名高级助手 更多在所有人面前与姆努钦对抗，紧张局势升级至如此程度，以至于让一名在场者想起了电影《《饥饿游戏》》，该片在国家电视台直播了反乌托邦死亡比赛。
中情局网站上发布的这本书引用了前总统巴拉克·奥巴马的国家情报总监詹姆斯·克拉珀的话说，特朗普倾向于“偏离正题;在一个小时的讨论中，可能会有八九分钟的真正智慧。”
克拉珀说，虽然情报界与证据合作，但特朗普“没有事实依据”——证据对他没有影响。
尽管如此，克拉珀表示，特朗普在与美国情报界成员接触或提及他们时可能会“彬彬有礼、和蔼可亲、充满敬意”。
人们真的很生气。
消息人士称，正如一名前官员向史密斯团队描述的那样，特朗普发布的伊朗火箭发射失败的图像揭示了这位时任总统对保护机密信息“毫不关心”。
2021年，雅虎据一名政府官员透露，新闻报道称，在与情报官员的简报中，特朗普认为这张照片“非常整洁，并询问他是否可以保留它”，这让一些情报官员感到紧张。但那篇新闻报道没有提供去年目击者向史密斯提供的同样详细的描述。
消息人士告诉ABC新闻，在与史密斯的团队交谈时，前助手和官员表示，特朗普当时被特别警告说，尽管他有权解密伊朗拙劣发射的图像，但这样做也有潜在的风险。
消息人士称，特朗普最初同意等待，然后咨询情报官员，但情报官员显然花了太长时间;大约一个小时后，特朗普在网上发布了这张照片。
据消息人士透露，一名前国家安全官员告诉史密斯的团队:“我感到非常震惊。
据消息人士透露，这位前官员指出，特朗普可能认为这没什么大不了的——但只有专家才会知道公布这种机密信息是否会泄露“我们是如何获得”它的，以及它是否会“损害我们未来获得(它)的能力”。
'So appalled': What witnesses told special counsel about Trump's handling of classified info while still president
In the summer of 2019, only hours after an Iranian rocket accidentally exploded at one of Iran's own launch sites, senior U.S. officials met with then-presidentDonald Trumpand shared a sharply detailed, highly classified image of the blast's catastrophic aftermath.
The image was captured by a U.S. satellite whose true capabilities were a tightly guarded secret. But Trump wanted to share it with the world -- he thought it was especially "sexy" because it was marked classified, one of his former advisers later recalled to special counsel Jack Smith's investigators, according to sources familiar with the former adviser's statements.
Worried that the image becoming public could hurt national security efforts, intelligence officials urged Trump to hold off until more knowledgeable experts were able to weigh in, the sources said. But less than an hour later, while at least one of those intelligence officials was in another building scrambling to get more information, Trumpposted the imageto Twitter.
"It was so upsetting, and people were really angry," one of Trump's former advisers told investigators, sources said.
The public pushback to Trump's post was immediate: Intelligence experts and even international media questioned whether U.S. interests had just been endangered by what Trump did. When pressed about it at the White House, Trump insisted he hadn't released classified information because he had an "absolute right to do" it.
While much of Smith's sprawlingclassified documents investigationhas focused on how Trump handled classified materials after leaving the White House, a wide array of former aides and advisers -- including personal valets, press assistants, senior national security officials, and even Trump's briefers from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- have provided Smith with firsthand accounts about how Trump allegedly handled and used intelligence while still in office.
Those firsthand accounts, as relayed to ABC News by sources, underscore what could be at stake as Trump seeks a return to the White House, and they are coming to light as he is likely on the verge of receiving formal government briefings again as the Republican Party's official nominee in the 2024 presidential election.
In interviews with investigators last year, former aides and national security officials who were close to Trump in the White House described a president who could erupt in anger when presented with intelligence he didn't want to hear, who routinely reviewed and stored classified information in unsecured locations, and who had what some former officials described as "a cavalier attitude" toward the damage that could be done by its disclosure, according to sources.
A book published on the CIA's website, describing the intelligence community's experience with Trump during his transition to the presidency and then his time in the White House, said that while Trump was "suspicious and insecure about the intelligence process," he still "engaged with it," even as he publicly attacked it.
The book also noted that Trump was "unique" among presidents in that, before taking over the White House, "he had no experience handling classified information or working with military, diplomatic, or intelligence programs and operations."
'Hand in the woodchipper'
As former officials described meetings with Trump to Smith's team, Trump only wanted to listen to new information about certain parts of the world, according to sources.
In particular, the sources said, Smith's team was told that Trump was uninterested in hearing about Latin America or countries that he similarly thought were not essential. The sources said witnesses confirmed previous public reporting that Trump referred to such places as "s---hole countries" and suggested the United States should stop welcoming migrants from them.
Today, on the presidential campaign trail, Trump continues torail against migrantsfrom Latin American countries and others who reached the southern border through parts of Latin America.
Sources said former officials also told Smith's team that Trump refused to listen to certain briefings related to Russia, saying Trump "absolutely" didn't want to hear about Russian influence operations, and he couldn't be convinced that Russian troops were already operating inside Ukraine -- even as his own administration was publicly calling out their routine incursions into the country's eastern region to support Russian-backed separatists.
On the campaign trail, Trump recently insisted that he would have prevented Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 if he were still commander-in-chief.
According to the sources, one of Trump's former advisers joked with Smith's team last year that bringing up Russia during a meeting with Trump was like "stick[ing] my hand in the woodchipper again."
In its most recent worldwide assessment, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Russia continues to pose a significant threat to U.S. national security and, more broadly, to "rules-based international order."
As he has done in public, Trump often privately disagreed with conclusions reached by the U.S. intelligence community, especially related to Russia and Ukraine, choosing instead to rely on unverified claims from other people, sources said that Smith's investigators were told.
And sources said former aides confirmed to Smith's investigators previous media reports that Trump almost never read the President's Daily Brief, a report summarizing classified intelligence and analysis on the day's most pressing issues.
Trump preferred to receive such summaries verbally, according to sources.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Trump referred ABC News to a statement by the former president in which he called the classified documents case a "two-tiered system of justice and unconstitutional selective prosecution."
A spokesperson for the special counsel declined to comment to ABC News.
'Like a junk drawer'
Throughout Trump's presidency, many of those who interacted with Trump every day saw him bring classified documents to unsecured locations, raising concerns among some of them, several witnesses told Smith's team, the sources said.
As early as 2018, the Office of the Staff Secretary, which manages the documents flowing to the Oval Office, began asking personnel in the White House about documents that had gone missing, including some classified ones, one of Trump's personal valets told investigators, sources said.
And at one point, sources said the valet recalled, he even warned the staff secretary's office that classified documents were being taken out of secure locations in white boxes and ending up in all sorts of potentially concerning places.
According to the sources, several witnesses told Smith's team that they routinely saw classified documents or classified folders in Trump's White House residence, and that Trump would sometimes store as many as 30 boxes in his bedroom, which one valet said Trump treated "like a junk drawer."
While it's not clear how many boxes at any given time in Trump's residence contained documents with classification markings, witnesses said they frequently observed boxes and papers traveling from the Oval Office to his residence that contained classified documents, according to sources familiar with what witnesses have told the special counsel.
"I did not think that he respected what classified information was," sources quoted one former official as telling investigators.
In Trump's first year in office, several media reports described how Trump had allegedly exposed sensitive information: In February 2017, he and Japan's then-prime minister reportedly discussed a response to North Korea's latest ballistic missile test over dinner in a crowded dining room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and then two months later Trump told the Philippines president on a phone call that the U.S. military had positioned two nuclear submarines near North Korea.
The following month, Trump reportedly shared highly-sensitive intelligence about ISIS with Russian officials visiting the White House.
Some witnesses who spoke with Smith's team, however, said they were not concerned by what they saw while Trump was president.
Robert O'Brien, who served as Trump's national security adviser at the end of his presidency, told Smith's team that Trump "consistently" handled classified information appropriately, sources said.
'The Hunger Games'
As some former officials described it to Smith's investigators, discussing the latest intelligence with Trump could be an unpredictable task, sources said.
At times he would become so upset over what senior national security or intelligence officials were telling him that it would derail entire meetings, according to sources familiar with what witnesses told investigators.
In one series of meetings, ahead of an international summit in Europe, Trump met with then-CIA director Gina Haspel, then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and others to help plan for the summit. But when Trump was told positive things about one of the people he would likely meet at the summit, Trump "lost it," insisting that he didn't care, then he "lost it" again when he was being updated on a tax-related negotiation involving Mnuchin, sources said.
The sources said Trump then pitted one of his top aides against Mnuchin in front of everyone else, escalating the tension so much that it reminded one of those present of the movie "The Hunger Games," with its dystopian death match broadcast live on national TV.
The book published on the CIA's website quoted former President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, as saying that Trump was prone to "fly off on tangents; there might be eight or nine minutes of real intelligence in an hour's discussion."
And while the intelligence community worked with evidence, Trump "was 'fact-free' -- evidence doesn't cut it with him," according to Clapper.
Still, Clapper said Trump could be "courteous, affable, and complimentary" when he engaged with or referred to members of the U.S. intelligence community.
'People were really angry'
Sources said that, as one former official described it to Smith's team, Trump's posting of the image from Iran's failed rocket launch revealed how the then-president "just didn't care" about protecting classified information.
In 2021, Yahoo! News described how, during his briefing with intelligence officials, Trump thought the image "was very neat, and asked if he could keep it," which made some of the intelligence officials nervous, according to an administration official. But that news report didn't offer the same detailed account provided to Smith by witnesses last year.
Sources told ABC News that while speaking with Smith's team, former aides and officials said Trump was specifically warned at the time that while he had the authority to declassify the image of Iran's botched launch, there were also potential risks associated with doing that.
Trump initially agreed to wait while intelligence officials were then consulted, sources said, but the intelligence officials apparently took too long; about an hour later, Trump posted the image online.
"I was so appalled," one former national security official told Smith's team, according to the sources.
The former official noted that Trump may have believed it wasn't a big deal -- but only an expert would know if releasing such classified information could reveal "how we got it" it and whether it could "compromise our ability to get [it] in the future," the former official explained to Smith's team, according to the sources.
