The American State Department is launching an investigation on how a filing cabinet in its Jerusalem Consulate has sold still containing sensitive to secret information, according to The Times.

The documents were on Marine and State serving in Israel and one such document included the details of a discussion held by a Marine and an Israeli woman at a bar; it was classified “secret”. Israeli police were able to locate the “bar” documents and return to the to the U.S. consulate.

The cabinet was sold during an auction in 2005.

“There is an investigation under way. I believe the components of the file cabinets have been returned. I believe they were purchased from - this was an auction that the consulate in Jerusalem held in December of 2005. We’re reviewing them and investigating,” said a State Department spokesman.

Given that consulates deal with thousands of paper it is not surprising that they realized only more than three years later that documents were missing. But what is remarkable is that any U.S. consulate is holding an auction. It’s not like the U.S. is some developing nation who’s foreign minister is short on money, why did the consulate need to hold an auction? Did it really need money that bad. That’s what I want to know.

It is unclear if official Israeli circles saw any of the documents, but the “bar” exchange as most likely an effort by Israeli intelligence to spy on the U.S. as former C.I.A officer Robert Baer recently said on Fox News:

“It’s a major breach because the government, at all cost, wants to keep these records out of foreign hands, whether Israeli or any other country. We spy on Israel; they spy on us. The Marines are vulnerable because they are young and they [are] inevitably single.”