Fox anchor says concern about sensitive documents in Mar-a-Lago case could be “overblown” because they had been there for “18 months and hadn’t fallen into the wrong hands”
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From the August 26, 2022, edition of Fox News' America Reports
JOHN ROBERTS (ANCHOR): You've been reading from page 17 of the affidavit. If you go back to page eight, the 15 boxes of materials that were handed over to the National Archives and Records Administration says that they contain newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous printouts, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post-presidential records and a lot of classified records, of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records and otherwise improperly identified. I mean, it sounded like there was a mishmash, a jumble of documents that were all contained in these boxes, and while we don't know because it's all blacked out, did somebody who was stationed at Mar-a-Lago, maybe in a security role, say, "Look at, this stuff is crazy, it's not being properly stored, it's being stored along with a bunch of other stuff that anybody could go through and we have got to get it now otherwise god forbid it falls into the wrong hands." I mean, that's just speculation on my part. But the fact that this was not archived properly in terms of, a lot of the stuff was sensitive compartmented information according to the affidavit that was mixed in with newspaper articles, et cetera. I mean maybe they had a legitimate concern that it could fall into the wrong hands or maybe the concern was overblown because it had been there for, you know, 18 months and hadn't fallen into the wrong hands.
DAVID SPUNT (CORRESPONDENT): Well, you know, you mentioned this page which is page 8, when it talks about kind of a mishmash of letters and pictures and mementos that may have been taken from the White House. And then you see pages like page 20 as you mentioned that are just completely blacked out. That's the difficult position that the Department of Justice, the judge, even team Trump is in right now because nobody can explain, you know, no matter what side they are arguing, what is in here, whether someone is going to be exonerated or whether someone would be charged. That's the problem is we don't know specifically what was in those boxes, what kind of documents they were concerned about, obviously there were negotiations going on for several months. There was a subpoena issued several months back, but there are so many more questions and it's just so unique to see an affidavit that's released at this point in time and Judge Reinhart said in court one week ago in West Palm Beach that, you know, releasing an affidavit that's heavily redacted like this may actually do more harm than good, but in this case there are several sections that are not redacted where we are learning some new information, as far as in those boxes, the 15 boxes that were taken. We know 14 out of the 15 boxes had some classified information and there is now more of a breakdown there, but just so many unanswered questions we want to know, John.
ROBERTS: And we should point out too, those 15 boxes, those were materials that were turned over back in January and then it continued to be a back and forth. Donald Trump weighing in on Truth Social just before we move on here, saying, "Affidavit heavily redacted, nothing mentioned on nuclear, a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI and DOJ, or our close working relationship regarding document turnover, we gave them much," and that again that was back in January. "Judge Bruce Reinhart should never have allowed the break in of my home. He recused himself two months ago from one of my cases based on his animosity and hatred of your favorite president comma me, what changed? Why hasn't he recused himself on this case. Obama must be very proud of him now." The latest from former President Trump on that.