Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was “confident” Attorney General Merrick Garland took every precaution and acted appropriately in the investigation resulting in a raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You asked for a damage assessment and a classified briefing from the intelligence community last week regarding the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. Have you heard back from the intelligence community? And do you have any concerns about the potential for this precedent, a search of a president’s house, to be abused?”
Schiff said, “We haven’t received a damage assessment yet. I assume that’s being undertaken, and I have every expectation it will be shared with us. I look forward to that. We would also, as a committee, like to see what documents that were marked Top Secret SCI were in the president’s position at Mar-a-Lago. This is very serious business. When documents have those markings, it generally indicates that the source of information is very sensitive and that the documents itself were revealed, it could jeopardize that source. You would not only expose the information in the document, you would lose any future intelligence you might gain from the same source. So very serious business, and we want to get to the bottom of it.”
He added, “In terms of the precedent, I’m confident Merrick Garland took every precaution, took every effort short of the search warrant to obtain those documents. If and the public reporting is correct that Trump lawyers asserted in an affidavit that they had given all these documents up and the Justice Department had good reason to believe that wasn’t true, then it justifies this means of getting the information, the execution of a search warrant. Yes, it’s a very powerful precedent. At the same time, I’m confident that it was used appropriately given the circumstances.”
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