Sources: Trump shared sub details
Then-president and Australian discussed U.S. nuclear secrets
Shortly after he left office, former President Donald Trump shared apparently classified information about U.S. nuclear submarines with an Australian businessman during an evening of conversation at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The businessman, Anthony Pratt, a billionaire member of Mar-a-Lago who runs one of the world’s largest cardboard companies, went on to share the sensitive details about the submarines with several others, the people said. Trump’s disclosures, they said, potentially endangered the U.S. nuclear fleet.
Federal prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, learned about Trump’s disclosures of the secrets to Pratt, which were first revealed by ABC News, and interviewed him as part of their investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, the people said.
According to another person familiar with the matter, Pratt is now among more than 80 people prosecutors have identified as possible witnesses who could testify against Trump at the classified documents trial, which is scheduled to start in May in U.S. District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla.
Pratt’s name does not appear in the indictment accusing Trump of illegally holding on to nearly three dozen classified documents after he left office and then conspiring with two of his aides at Mar-a-Lago to obstruct the government’s attempts to get them back.
The report that Trump discussed some of the country’s most sensitive nuclear secrets with Pratt in a cavalier fashion could help prosecutors establish that the former president had a long habit of recklessly handling classified information.
The existence of the testimony about the conversation underscores how much additional information the special prosecutor’s office may have amassed out of the public’s view.
During his talk with Pratt, Trump revealed at least two pieces of critical information about the U.S. submarines’ tactical capacities, according to people familiar with the matter. Those included how many nuclear warheads the vessels carried and how close they could get to their Russian counterparts without being detected.
It does not appear that Trump showed Pratt any of the classified documents he had been keeping at Mar-aLago. In August 2022, the FBI carried out a court-approved search warrant at the property and hauled away more than 100 documents containing national security secrets, including some that bore the country’s most sensitive classification markings.
Trump had earlier returned hundreds of other documents he had taken with him from the White House, some in response to a subpoena.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment. Representatives for Pratt did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Even though Pratt has been interviewed by prosecutors, the people familiar with the matter said, it remained unclear whether Trump was merely blustering or exaggerating in his conversation with him.
Joe Hockey, a former Australian ambassador to United States, sought to play down Trump’s disclosure.
Trump has been known to share classified information verbally on other occasions. During an Oval Office meeting in 2017 shortly after he fired FBI Director James Comey, Trump revealed sensitive classified intelligence to two Russian officials, according to people briefed on the matter.
Well into his presidency, he also posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, a classified photo of an Iranian launch site.
The indictment in the documents case also accused Trump of showing a classified battle plan to attack Iran to a group of visitors at his club in Bedminster, N.J. Prosecutors claim a recording of the meeting with the visitors depicts Trump as describing the document he brandished as “secret.”
President Joe Biden cut off intelligence briefings that former presidents traditionally get when Trump left office.
Pratt cultivated a relationship with Trump once he became president. He joined Mar-a-Lago in 2017, then was invited to a state dinner and had Trump join him at one of his company’s plants in Ohio.