On Saturday, following the released of a heavily redacted affidavit that lead to the August 8 search on former President Donald Trump’s personal home, the Director of National Intelligence has announced that “top lawmakers” will be provided an “assessment” regarding any potential national risk in regards to the documents held at Mar-a-Lago.
Direct Avril Haines sent a letter to both Carolyn Maloney – the current Oversight Committee Chair – and Adam Schiff – the Intelligence Committee Chairman. Maloney lost her primary election to Jerry Nadler (D-NY) last Tuesday. Maloney and Nadler were in a contest over a newly redrawn district.
Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) has famously been an enemy of President Trump. Schiff is know for pushing for an investigation into the now-debunked Steele dossier.
The assessment is to inform these committee chairs that their members will meet to learn of the potential national security risk due to these documents being held at Mar-a-Lago under a lock in a storage room. Mar-a-Lago is guarded full-time by Secret Service agents, even when the former president and his family are away.
At the same time, the public is concerned over what are allegedly classified documents being at the personal home of the former president. Trump – and his former Chief of Staff to the Defense Department, Kash Patel – have both said that Trump declassified the documents before leaving office. The redacted affidavit released Friday says that there were at least 187 documents with questionable classification in the fifteen boxes returned to the National Archives in January 2022.
Schiff and Maloney released a joint statement on the matter: “We are pleased that in response to our inquiry, Director Haines has confirmed that the Intelligence Community and the Justice Department are assessing the damage caused by the improper storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. . . (affidavit) affirms our great concern . . documents . . .were those that could endanger human sources.”
The Director of National Intelligence oversees, among eighteen governmental agencies, the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA).
Haines’ letter was in response to a request by both Schiff and Maloney, who had both requested a “security damage assessment” just days after the August 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago.
Politico reports that on August 13, Schiff and Maloney sent a three-page jointly-written letter to Director Haines requesting the assessment, writing: “Former President Trump’s conduct has potentially put our national security at grave risk. This issue demands a full review, in adition to the ongoing law enforcemtn inquiry.” The letter asked Haines for a “classified briefing” as “soon as possible.”
The FBI removed at least eleven boxes during the August 8 search. Since then, the property receipt of items taken has been published. The receipt is rather vague, only stating that they took materials that were marked secret, top secret, and SCI documents. “Top Secret” and “SCI” are considered the highest levels of classification where intelligence is concerned.
On Saturday, President Trump posted on social media that the raid carried out on Mar-a-Lago, his personal home, as “one of the most egregious assaults on democracy.”
On Truth Social, Trump posted a loaded question: “When are the great Agents, and others, in the FBI going to say ‘we aren’t going to take it anymore’ much as they did when James Comey ready off a list of all Crooked Hillary Clinton’s crimes, only to say that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.”
Trump went on to say that many “wonderful people of the FBI went absolutely nuts” and demanded that Comey commence investigating the email and server scandal.
Trump ended his posted by writing “the Left has lost their minds!!”
