President Donald Trump's former chief of staff said on Saturday that he took top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago because he didn't believe in the White House classification system.
John Kelly told The Washington Post that his father believed that people in the intel business were incompetent.
He didn't think the classification system was right.
The FBI is investigating the Mar-a-Lago residence of the former president. According to court documents, the FBI conducted a raid on his Florida property as part of an investigation into whether he had violated three laws related to the handling of government documents.
The Espionage Act carries a 10-year prison sentence if Trump is found guilty.
According to the court records, the FBI recovered 11 boxes of classified records that Trump took with him from the White House. Sonam Sheth reported that some of the boxes were marked as top secret.
Trump said that he had declassified the documents. He said that everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time.
—Acyn (@Acyn) August 13, 2022
In order to get ready for work the next day, President Trump often took classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence. When documents were taken into the residence from the Oval Office, they were deemed to be declassified.
During his daily briefings, Trump asked if he could keep the materials presented to him, according to JohnBolton.
The briefers would often say, "Well, we need to take it back," because people were nervous about his lack of concern for classification matters. Sometimes he wouldn't give it back, but he usually gave it back.
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