US lawmakers demanded more information on the potential threat to national security posed by Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents, as the fallout from the unprecedented search at the home of the former president reverberated through Washington.
On Sunday, the first reactions of Congress to Friday’s release by the FBI of the search warrant dated August 8th were the comments and requests from Democrats and Republicans.
The search warrant revealed Trump was being investigated for serious violations in the law related national defense, mishandling of government materials and obstruction of justice. This prompted a flurry questions from Capitol Hill.
Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat, and Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who respectively serve as chair and vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, asked the justice department and the director of national intelligence on Sunday to provide the panel with “the classified documents that were seized in the search,” and an “assessment of potential risks to national security as a result of their mishandling”, a spokesperson for the committee said.
Even though that request was bipartisan, it belied a deep partisan divide with regard to Trump’s treatment by US law enforcement. While Democrats have focused on Trump’s legal gravity, Republicans have expressed doubt and criticised the search.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, has asked the director of national intelligence to review the harm to American interests — formally known as a damage assessment — resulting from Trump’s decision to hold on to a trove of sensitive material after leaving the White House in early 2021.
“What is, to me, most disturbing here is the degree to which . . . it appears to be wilful, on the president’s part — the keeping of these documents after the government was requesting them back. And that adds another layer of concern,” Schiff said.
Republicans, many of whom have rushed to Trump’s side and attacked the justice department, the FBI and US attorney-general Merrick Garland over the past week, asked federal authorities to release the affidavit in support of the search warrant. Federal investigations are typically kept secret during federal investigations. Affidavits contain details about the reasons the DoJ requested a federal judge approve the search.
“All Garland has to do is comply with the laws, provide this information to us, let us look. Show us the goods,” Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, said on CNN. “We need to determine, is this a national security threat? And . . . was there abuse of discretion by attorney-general Garland?,” he said.
“I think it’s very important long-term for the justice department, now that they’ve done this, that they show that this was not just a fishing expedition — that they had due cause to go in and to do this, that they did exhaust all other means. And if they can’t do that, then we’ve got a serious problem on our hands,” Mike Rounds, a Republican senator from South Dakota, told NBC.
Trump claims that the search was motivated by politics. He claimed that he had declassified all of the material before he left office, but there is no record to support this claim. According to the inventory of 45 items recovered by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, 11 were described by the authorities as being either top secret, secret, classified, or confidential.
On Sunday, the former president stated that the FBI had retrieved boxes containing items that were protected by attorney client privilege. “I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken,” he wrote on his Truth Social account.
He also renewed his attacks on US law enforcement in another post, lamenting the “complete and total stranglehold that the Radical Left Democrats have over the DOJ and FBI”. He added that they would “never attack the home of a former Democrat president” and it was “all so out of control [with] great simmering anger”.
Fears of violence against the FBI/DoJ have been raised by the harsh criticisms from Trump and his Republican allies. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issued a joint bulletin on Friday about the potential for attacks on law enforcement personnel and facilities across America as anger has flared among Trump’s conservative base of supporters who already deeply mistrust the federal government.
The White House has sought to distance itself from the search of Trump’s property and continued to do so on Sunday. Even when asked to comment about the latest revelations that the material recovered from Trump may pose a risk to national security, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said: “We do not interfere. We don’t get briefed. We do not get involved.”
However, congressional Democrats were more restrained.
“When I look at classified documents, I’ve got to go in a special room. I can’t even wear my Fitbit. You can’t bring staff with you. And that’s because these documents not only contain our nation’s top secrets but because countries that will do us harm, do harm to our own citizens, we don’t want them to get a hold of them in any way,” said Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic senator from Minnesota, told NBC.
“That’s why it is so important that these documents remain in safe locations. And Mar-a-Lago, where you can check out croquet sets and tennis rackets and golf clubs, that’s not one of them,” she added.
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