Intelligence Officials Will Assess Security Risks
From Mar-a-Lago Documents
The director of national intelligence told lawmakers
that her office would lead a review concerning the sensitive documents
retrieved from former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence.
Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence,
said her office would work with the Justice Department to ensure that the
assessment did not interfere with the department’s criminal investigation.
Luke
Broadwater
By Luke
Broadwater
Aug. 27,
2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/us/politics/trump-documents-security-assessment-affidavit.html
WASHINGTON
— U.S. intelligence officials will conduct a review to assess the possible
risks to national security from former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of
classified documents after the F.B.I. retrieved boxes containing sensitive
material from Mar-a-Lago, according to a letter to lawmakers.
In the
letter, Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, informed the
top lawmakers on the House Intelligence and Oversight Committees that her
office would lead an intelligence community assessment of the “potential risk
to national security that would result from the disclosure” of documents Mr.
Trump took with him to his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla.
In the
letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Haines said her office
would work with the Justice Department to ensure that the assessment did not
interfere with the department’s criminal investigation concerning the documents.
The review will determine what intelligence sources or systems could be
identified from the documents and be compromised if they fell into the wrong
hands.
Ms.
Haines’s letter, dated Friday, was reported earlier by Politico. It came after
the leaders of the Intelligence and Oversight Committees asked her on Aug. 13
to conduct an “immediate review and damage assessment” in the wake of the
F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, during which federal agents recovered 11 sets of
classified documents.
The Senate
Intelligence Committee also asked for a damage assessment, according to the
panel’s chairman, Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, who said the
request had been bipartisan.
On Friday,
the Justice Department released a redacted version of the affidavit used to
obtain the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. That document included the revelation
that Mr. Trump had retained highly classified material after leaving office,
including documents related to the use of “clandestine human sources” in
intelligence gathering.
Representatives
Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, and Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of
the Oversight Committee, issued an approving statement in response to Ms. Haines’s
letter.
“The D.O.J.
affidavit, partially unsealed yesterday, affirms our grave concern that among
the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago were those that could endanger human
sources,” the lawmakers said in their statement.
Using the
abbreviation for the intelligence community, they added, “It is critical that
the I.C. move swiftly to assess and, if necessary, to mitigate the damage done
— a process that should proceed in parallel with D.O.J.’s criminal
investigation.”
Before the
F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, the National Archives and the Justice
Department tried at length to retrieve sensitive documents that Mr. Trump had
kept after leaving the White House.
In January,
the archives collected 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago. The F.B.I. later reviewed
their contents and found a total of 184 documents with classification markings,
including 25 labeled “top secret,” according to the affidavit released on
Friday.
Julian E.
Barnes contributed reporting.
Luke
Broadwater covers Congress. He was the lead reporter on a series of
investigative articles at The Baltimore Sun that won a Pulitzer Prize and a
George Polk Award in 2020. @lukebroadwater
.jpg)
.jpg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário