Felix Sater revealed that Trump approached him about telling the story of Sater's work as an informant for the FBI and CIA, including work in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Asia to provide intelligence agencies with information about satellite phones being used by the then-leader of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden.

But Sater said the president was blocked from doing so because the information was part of then-sealed court documents that government prosecutors argued at the time could not be made public due to national security concerns.