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Former President Donald Trump defended keeping classified materials in his possession and said that he probably shouldn't have returned the documents until "it was all settled."
Trump took the classified documents from the White House when he left office and was issued a subpoena in May of last year requiring him to return all the classified records that he kept in his possession. However, the former president ignored the subpoena which led to the FBI search last August when agents seized hundreds of documents with "classified" markings from his Mar-a-Lago house in Florida after approval from Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Even though Trump is currently being investigated for illegally keeping those documents, the former president maintained his innocence and repeatedly blasted the FBI and the justice department. He also claimed that he declassified those documents before taking them to his home.
In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump compared his situation with that of President Joe Biden who kept classified documents dating back to when he was vice president during the Obama administration. Classified documents were found earlier this year at his Delaware home as well as the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. Other classified documents were found next to a Corvette in his home garage.
As a result of the discovery, Garland appointed U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate the records that Biden kept. Biden and members of his White House staff said that they were fully cooperating with investigators in the case following the discovery.
"The Special 'Prosecutor' is harassing and threatening my people over the Document's Hoax, while NOTHING is being done with respect to Crooked Joe Biden's MANY TIMES MORE Documents, especially those stored in CHINATOWN & Delaware. Another RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, style Witch Hunt. Under the Presidential Records Act, I have done everything right, except that I probably should not have returned documents until it was ALL settled. I had every right to have them, with the right, also, to Declassify..." Trump wrote on Friday.
After the FBI retrieved the classified documents, Trump's office told Just the News that he had a "standing order" to declassify documents with sensitive information so he can take it to his Florida home, but former Justice Department (DOJ) official Mary McCord said that she didn't find a "plausible argument that he had made a conscious decision about each one of these to declassify them before he left," and added that the former president had no authority to declassify information after leaving office.
The documents seized from Trump's residence reportedly included information about nuclear programs and highly classified programs. One of Trump's lawyers said in June that all classified documents were returned, but the FBI found evidence that suggested that he still kept more sensitive records.
Jack Smith was appointed in November as the special counsel to oversee the ongoing probe. Meanwhile, Trump repeatedly criticized authorities for taking the documents from his house. In December, he said on Truth Social that "under the Presidential Records Act and the very well established Clinton Socks Case, the raid of Mar-a-Lago by the FBI, and the taking of documents and many other items, was ILLEGAL. Everything should be returned, at once!"
While some opposed Trump for keeping the documents, some of his allies defended him, including Representative Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, who in January pointed out the difference between Trump's and Biden's document situations.
"President Trump's house should not have been raided. That's the huge difference between here and President Biden's situation," Turner, who is the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said at the time.
Meanwhile, former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who served during the Trump administration, warned that Trump should be worried about being investigated for allegedly mishandling classified documents. During an appearance on ABC News' This Week last month, Barr said that Trump "had no claim to those documents" as they belong to the government and that prosecutors have "some very good evidence there."
Newsweek reached out by email to Trump's media office for comment.
About the writer
Fatma Khaled is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics, world ... Read more