There should not be any dispute that if highly classified documents had been retained at Mar-a-Lago, and had been accessible to people who did not have the top security clearances necessary to view them, then it was urgent for the FBI and other intelligence officials to examine the documents and assess the damage — to determine if informants were compromised and potentially in danger; if intelligence methods had been exposed, leaving the government vulnerable to disinformation; if sensitive intelligence operations had to be aborted; and so on. Representative Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee who is no never-Trumper, told Politico, “I mean, if he had actual Special Access Programs — do you know how extraordinarily sensitive that is? That’s very, very sensitive. If that were actually at his residence, that would be a problem.”
If, as appears to be the case, it was appropriate for the FBI to conduct this review of Trump records, then the PRA mandated Biden’s approval and his review of any Trump privilege claims. As a result, there is very little upside for Trump in emphasizing Biden’s collaboration with the Justice Department.
By contrast, the downside for Trump is immense. Wall’s letter not only lays out the scope of Trump’s recklessness to the extent it was known by May 10. It further invites consideration of the events that followed: Trump’s blocking the FBI’s access to the records that had been returned to the archives; the June 3 representation by Trump’s lawyers — in writing, in the context of responding to a May 11 grand-jury subpoena, and after representing that they had thoroughly searched records retained at Mar-a-Lago — that there were no more documents marked as classified on the premises; the subsequent surrender, also by Trump’s lawyers, of Mar-a-Lago surveillance-camera video that reportedly showed people breezing in and out of areas where Trump was storing his presidential records, apparently moving boxes around; and, finally, the seizure during the August 8 search of a significant amount of additional, highly classified information.
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