In other words, at least some of the documents in Mar-a-Lago were among the most sensitive in any president’s files.

The affidavit, written on Aug. 5 and released by a judge on Aug. 26, reported that 15 boxes of documents, which had already been retrieved from the Florida estate early in 2022, contained 184 documents, including 25 marked Top Secret—and that some of those were marked HCS, SI, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN. 1. HCS means "HUMINT Control System," and HUMINT means Human Intelligence—in other words, intelligence gathered from spies. Documents marked HUMINT may contain the identities of spies, as well as information obtained from them. 2. SI means "Special Intelligence" and concerns intercepts of foreign communications, including information about the technology and operations used by foreign governments to transmit or collect information. 3. FISA means information, also concerning communications intercepts, processed through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. 4. ORCON stands for "Originator-Controlled," meaning that dissemination—even within the government, even to officials who hold Top Secret clearances—must first be approved by the originator (for instance, the CIA, if the document originated there). 5. NOFORN means that the document cannot be released to foreign governments or citizens.