(Headline USA) The ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said the FBI’s heavily redacted search warrant application contained no “imminent national security threat” to justify the agency’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s home.
“What’s missing in the allegations [is] some imminent national security threat that would justify raiding the president’s home,” Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, told Fox News on Sunday.
Turner was responding to the unsealed warrant affidavit released by the Justice Department on Friday. The 38-page document was heavily redacted, but it did reveal some nuggets.
The affidavit claimed the FBI previously found 184 documents marked classified – 25 were top secret, 92 as secret, and 67 as confidential – in Trump’s home. Those documents, however, did not warrant an “invasive” raid, Turner argued.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., on the other hand, argued Trump was in the wrong for bringing the classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago home with him.
“I understand he turned over a lot of documents. He should have turned over all of them. I imagine he knows that very well now as well,” Blunt told ABC News.
Pressed by @GStephanopoulos on whether it was right for former Pres. Trump to take classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, GOP Sen. Roy Blunt says, “He should have turned the documents over.”
“I imagine he knows that very well know.” https://t.co/hSZ1FhytY7 pic.twitter.com/wPcOb3GDD4
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 28, 2022
However, Blunt noted that the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which he is a member, was never informed about the missing classified documents, and argued the timing of the raid is suspicious.
“One of the things I was concerned about when I heard about this so-called raid or seizing of these documents was, why hadn’t the Intelligence Committee that I’ve been on for my time in the Senate and time in the House, why hadn’t we heard anything about this,” Blunt said.
