Donald Trump may have leaked classified info to Iran or Russia, claims his former lawyer

The tribulations of former US President Donald Trump seem to increase further as his ex-personal lawyer has claimed that Trump may have disseminated top-secret information during his tenure. The latest claim from Michael Cohen, who was Trump's lawyer for nearly 12 years, in a video released on TikTok, said the former President used to carry the secret boxes along while he was travelling to other countries. In staunch words, he said Trump wants to use secret information to hold the country hostage and added he took the boxes to the hotel rooms of those countries which were considered "unfavourable" or "dangerous" to the United States.

"Let me be very clear, considering I know this 'Mandarin Mussolini' extremely well. Donald doesn't take boxes of material around the world for no reason at all. He took it for nefarious reasons," Business Insider quoted his words from the video he uploaded on a short-form video hosting service owned by a Chinese company. 

"I stand firm when I say that Donald wants to use this in order to hold the country hostage. That's his goal as he knows his a** is in the grinder right now. He knows that he's cooked, that he's going to use this information, look for all we know, he's already given it away, but there's definitely more that's there," he added. 

Further, the American lawyer contested that Trump could use the papers to blackmail or could release top-secret information to Iran or Russia. On August 8 this year, the law enforcement agency conducted a raid at the residence of the ex-US President in Palm Beach, Florida. According to the FBI officials, they had recovered several secret documents that were stored "intentionally" and "illegally", with wrong intentions. Later, on Friday, an FBI affidavit released claimed former US President kept classified documents, many of them top-secret, mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence at his Florida-based residence.

Trump claims Mar-a-Lago raid is 'politically motivated'

According to the affidavit, the FBI recovered at least 14 "secret boxes" from Trump's residence. As per the court, the 45th President was not authorised to store highly confidential papers at his Mar-a-Lago residence. Of 184 documents marked classified, 25 were at the top-secret level. Some had special markings suggesting they included information from highly sensitive human sources or the collection of electronic "signals" authorised by a special intelligence court, according to the affidavit. Despite the revelation of such crucial information, President Trump contested the claims and painted it as a "politically motivated" witch hunt intended to damage his reelection prospects. He even took to his social media site and claimed his innocence and his cooperation with the federal agency officials.

Image: AP