The U.S. national intelligence community will conduct a damage assessment of the documents collected by the FBI in their search of former President Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month, according to director Avril Haines.
“The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) are working together to facilitate a classification review of relevant materials, including those recovered during the search,” Haines wrote in a letter, after the release of the redacted search warrant affidavit, addressed to the House Oversight and Reform Committee chair Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) and House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-California).
Maloney and Schiff issued a response to the letter.
“We are pleased that in response to our inquiry, Director Haines has confirmed that the Intelligence Community and Department of Justice are assessing the damage caused by the improper storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago,” they said in a joint statement, before adding that it was important to conduct the assessment “swiftly.”
The Justice Department’s investigation into possible mishandling of classified White House documents came after the National Archives located 15 missing boxes at Mar-a-Lago, sparking concern that Trump didn’t comply with the Presidential Records Act.
The redacted affidavit revealed that out of the 15 boxes, 184 documents were labeled as classified, “including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET.” It did not reveal any new information about the 11 sets of classified documents that were found at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, some of which were said to contain nuclear information.
