BREAKING: The DOJ-IG has found that the FBI systematically mishandled TROVES of classified information.
Pictured below is an FBI storage facility. The camera above the door doesn’t work, and the doors were kept open at all hours — allowing non-authorized personnel access to… pic.twitter.com/QRbvU8FPcy— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 22, 2024
Pallets of FBI boxes containing potentially classified information were found sitting in an unsecured warehouse. (Credit: Department of Justice/IG Report)
Talk about irony: The FBI, which was willing to use deadly force over Donald Trump allegedly mishandling classified documents, has been systematically mishandling similar information for years, according to bombshell findings released Thursday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
The DOJ-IG said it discovered the FBI’s mishandling of classified information while auditing a contract related to how the bureau destroys electronics containing “sensitive-but-unclassified” information, as well as classified national security information.
According to Horowitz’s audit, the FBI labels computers that handle such information when it sends them to a facility to be destroyed. However, it does not label internal hard drives extracted from those computers. The FBI also doesn’t properly track thumb drives and disk drives containing information of varying classification levels, according to Horowitz.
Compounding the security risk is the fact that those unmarked internal hard drives, thumb drives and disk drives often end up in a physically unsecured warehouse.
Horowitz said that when his staff visited an FBI “Media Destruction Team” facility last October, they found “non-accountable” hard drives and other electronic storage devices sitting in an open pallet-sized box. Horowitz said he’s not disclosing details about the facility since it’s not secured. (Read more: Headline USA, 8/22/2024) (Archive)