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Donald Trump Espionage GOP

GOP Congressman Says Trump Needed Classified Documents To Write His Memoir

The latest pathetic excuse for why disgraced, failed, one-term former president Donald Trump had dozens of boxes of classified and top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort: He needed them to write his memoir.

That ridiculous idea was floated Sunday by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) during an appearance on “Face the Nation.”

Just last week, Turner admitted he would personally have never taken such sensitive material home with him, but on Sunday he was demanding that the Justice Department release the full and unredacted affidavit used to obtain a search warrant:

“People want to make certain that if this is an imminent national security threat, that it’s pursued. But also, they want to make certain that you don’t have abuse of discretion here. And what our concern is, from our committee, is there’s an allegation of classified documents that falls within our jurisdiction, and show us what you found, because the affidavit is going to have them tell publicly now what they told the court they were going to go find. Show us what you found. It certainly won’t affect the investigation. We deal with classified documents and information all the time. Show us what it is that you went into the president’s residence, spent nine hours at former President Trump’s residence. What is it that was at an imminent national security threat that you didn’t just go to court and ask the court to order that the documents be delivered to them?”

Host Ed O’Keefe then asked, “What use could a former president have for classified or top secret information once he’s left office? Why bring it home with him to Florida?”

Turner replied:

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, you have to ask him. But certainly, we all know that every former president has access to their documents. It’s how they write their memoirs. They don’t have, you know, great recall of everything that’s occurred in their administration. And we don’t know that they were classified. We know, according to the FBI documents, they were identified as marked classified. You have, of course, the former president saying that he declassified them himself. But I think what’s important here about this abuse of discretion, we have evidence of the FBI abusing that discretion and of misconduct on behalf of the FBI.”

Yes, former presidents do indeed have “access to their documents,” but they aren’t allowed to keep top-secret information sitting around their residence, especially when their home is also a golf resort open to hundreds of club members.

Every new day brings a new excuse from Donald and his apologists. But there is no excuse for what the ex-president allegedly did, and he should have to pay a price for his actions.

By Andrew Bradford

Proud progressive journalist and political adviser living behind enemy lines in Red America.

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