“It’s hard for me to believe it was particularly sensitive - it’s been sitting at Mar-a-Lago for a year and a half before they do anything about it,” he said. Now, the Justice Department is investigating the Trump team’s handling of the documents and possible obstruction.Ĭornyn expressed skepticism the stashed documents held critical information. Ultimately a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago was obtained and more than 100 other documents with classified markings were found. Upon inspection, the FBI asked the storage room to be put under lock and key. Trump attorneys had insisted early in the summer after the first delivery of returned documents that there was nothing left at the former president’s club. The FBI’s search came after a protracted battle over missing documents launched soon after Trump left the White House in 2021.

Trump amassed more than a dozen boxes of papers and other mementos from the White House, many held in a storage room at Mar-a-Lago. In an interview this past week, Heinrich said, “It is outrageous to think - the cavalier nature with which the former president treats information, that can have life or death consequences for our sources, is unfathomable.”

#Classified101,” tweeted Heinrich, a member of the Intelligence Committee, days after the February 2017 incident. “Never leave a key in a classified lock bag in the presence of non-cleared people. A photo from a White House press briefing in 2017 showed Trump and others in the Oval Office with a lock bag visible on the desk, the key still inside. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., all but warned of Trump’s handling of sensitive documents early in the then-president’s term. Court filings from the federal government say hundreds of classified records have been retrieved from Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump’s alleged mishandling of the documents has stunned lawmakers of both parties, even those Republicans critical of the Justice Department’s unusual search of a former president. Secrets large and small - from the most mundane details about when an upcoming vote will be scheduled to the parlor intrigue of transitional alliances - are among the more valued bits of currency that pass through the place. John Cornyn, R-Texas.Ī culture of secrecy may not necessarily be expected from Capitol Hill, where 535 elected members of Congress, alongside thousands of aides and countless more visitors broker information on a daily basis as a routine part of governing. “We need to be able to do appropriate oversight for the Intelligence Committee so that we have a better handle on how this particular incident was handled, but so that we avoid problems like this in the future,” said Sen. 8 search, but it may be delayed by the legal fight between Trump and the government. Congress had asked for the briefing soon after the revelation of the unprecedented Aug. Intelligence officials have offered to brief congressional leaders, possibly as soon as next week, senators said, as they launch a lengthy risk assessment. These are some of the ways Capitol Hill keeps classified documents secured, an elaborate system of government protocols and high-level security clearances that stands in stark contrast to the storage room stash of secrets at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.Īs the Justice Department’s probe into the Republican former president’s possession of White House materials deepens, lawmakers of both parties have more questions than answers. And in the most rare of circumstances, the ability to handcuff a document pouch to a messenger to transport the nation’s secrets.

City of secrets and gold