Following the discovery by the FBI earlier this week that former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate contained 11 separate sets of classified documents, the Democratic chairs of the House Intelligence and Oversight Committees have requested a congressional briefing and a damage assessment from the leadership of the federal intelligence community.
According to a letter that was obtained by CNN on Saturday, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, and the Chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, Carolyn Maloney, requested that Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), conduct an immediate review following the extraordinary search of the home of a former President. Within the executive branch, the Director of National Intelligence is in charge of monitoring the Intelligence Community.
According to what Maloney and Schiff said in their article, “documents suggest the FBI’s search was an evidence-gathering stage in a national security inquiry regarding presidential records at Trump’s Florida property.”
It is now abundantly evident that a damage assessment is necessary for light of the newly disclosed information.
During the execution of a search warrant on Monday by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago, agents removed 11 sets of classified papers, some of which were labelled as “top secret/SCI,” which is one of the most stringent levels of classification.
In court documents that were unsealed and made public on Friday, it was revealed that the Department of Justice is looking into three different federal crimes as part of its investigation.
These crimes are violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice, and criminal handling of government records.
The inclusion of the offences indicated that the agency had probable cause to investigate those charges while it was gathering evidence in the search. [citation needed] There have been no criminal charges brought against anyone.
In the letter, the requests made by the chairs of the House committees were outlined in detail. One of those requests was to “instruct the National Counterintelligence Executive, in consultation with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community and other Inspectors General as appropriate, to conduct a damage assessment.”
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The remaining portion of the letter is formatted as follows, and an excerpt from it may be read below: “In addition, we ask that you commit to providing an acceptable classified briefing on the conduct of the damage assessment as early as possible.
It is of the utmost importance that we make sure to take all of the necessary steps to secure classified material and mitigate the risk to the safety of our country that was caused by the breach of the confidentiality of the information.
It is also of the utmost importance that we make sure to take all of the necessary steps to secure classified material.
This is because the breach of confidentially of the information put the safety of our nation in jeopardy.
It is of the utmost essential that we make this a top priority, even though the investigation into this matter is still in the process of being carried out by the Justice Department.
