Donald Trump’s former director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, says the allegations against the former president are serious, as “lives can be lost” from the mishandling of classified documents like those allegedlystored in closets and bathrooms at Mar-a-Lago.
Coats, who previously briefed Trump on a daily basis during his time as the national intelligence director,stepped down from his role in 2019amid rumors of tension with the former president.
Ron Sachs/Pool via Bloomberg; SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty
At the center of the case against Trump is his handling of classified documents. Prosecutors say more than 100 classified documents were taken from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort once his term was over. Among them were those detailing sensitive topics originating from intelligence agencies including the CIA, NSA and Department of Defense.
According to the indictment, those sensitive documents were not kept under lock and key, but were stored in “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, [Trump’s] bedroom, and a storage room,” all at Mar-a-Lago.
Prosecutors also claim that Trump showed some of the classified documents to people without security clearances. He allegedly showed a classified military map to a member of his PAC and a classified plan to invade Iran to a writer, a publisher and two members of his staff.
Coats said that the U.S. puts “millions of dollars into technology for gathering intelligence. And if that’s breached because somebody gets a classified document floating around or knows of it, we lose that information that we are grabbing.”
Dan Coats (left), Donald Trump.NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty
Trump, meanwhile, has said the boxes stored at Mar-a-Lago were merely full of “newspapers," decrying the investigation as a “witch hunt.”
But Coats told Collins that the case is about more than “just a bunch of papers.”
“Lives can be lost,” he said. “Money can be misspent. We can be — our adversaries are out there searching, trying to get this kind of information, because they want to undermine us.”
He continued: “It’s classified for a reason. It’s classified because we don’t want others to know what’s happening.”
Trump was earlier indicted on 37 counts, 31 of which were counts of willful retention of national defense information (a violation of the Espionage Act). The other six include one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice; one count of withholding a document or record; one count of corruptly concealing a document or record; one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation; one count of scheme to conceal; and one count of false statements and representations.
Also on Thursday, the head of maintenance at Mar-a-Lago, Carlos De Oliveira, was charged in the case after allegedly admitting to prosecutors that he falsely claimed he did not help Trump move boxes out of his residence.
Originally, De Oliveira allegedly told the FBI that he “never saw anything.” However, a new indictment alleges that De Oliveira told another Mar-a-Lago employee that “the boss” wanted to delete a server containing surveillance footage.
De Oliveira, 56, has been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, altering, destroying, mutilating a document, and false statements, as of Thursday. New court documents also identify De Oliveira as someone who allegedly assisted Trump aideWaltine “Walt” Nauta(who is also charged in the case) in reportedly moving about 30 boxes from Trump’s residence to a storage room.
source: people.com
