Republican allies of former President Donald Trump have hammered the Justice Department for leaks after it was reported another country’s top secret nuclear information was found in the raid of Mar-a-Lago.
The alleged discovery of highly sensitive information was reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday. The report claimed “a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched” Mar-a-Lago last month, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
The former president’s defenders immediately took aim at the department in the wake of the information making its way into the media. Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich tweeted: “The Washington Post continues to serve as the propaganda arm of the Biden administration, and instead of operating openly and honestly, they collude in never-ending leaks and lies at the expense of the integrity of the FBI and DOJ.”
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM BIDEN WASN’T BRIEFED ON TRUMP INVESTIGATION CONTRADICTED BY NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also condemned the leaks and cautioned against automatically believing anonymously sourced stories.
“First of all, again, we really don’t know,” Rubio told Fox & Friends on Fox News on Wednesday. “Let’s go back and understand that all of this information is coming from one side and one place, and that is ‘sources with knowledge of the investigation.’ Well, who are the sources with knowledge of the investigation? The FBI and the Justice Department. And they are leaking to the media. … These people, every single day, are strategically leaking information, that can’t be rebutted, by the way, or in any way analyzed, for a reason, and that’s politics. To influence the narrative. And so, first of all, I’m very skeptical of that.”
Christopher Kise, another lawyer for Trump, told the Washington Post: “The damage to public confidence in the integrity of the system simply cannot be underestimated” and that “the Court has provided a sensible path forward which does not include the selective leak of unverifiable and misleading information.”
An attorney for Trump, Alina Habba, told Newsmax: “This is incredibly disturbing to me in terms of leaks coming from the Justice Department” and that “when you have to defend yourself, stories come out, and that’s exactly what I believe they are — just stories.”
Both the DOJ and the FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a brief speech on Aug. 11, just three days after the raid, where he said he personally signed off on the Mar-a-Lago search and added: “Since I became Attorney General, I have made clear that the Department of Justice will speak through its court filings and its work.” Garland said that “the department did not make any public statements on the day of the search, and the former President publicly confirmed the search that evening, as is his right.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Much of our work is by necessity conducted out of the public eye. We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans and to protect the integrity of our investigations,” the attorney general said. “Federal law, longstanding department rules, and our ethical obligations prevent me from providing further details as to the basis of the search at this time.”
Trump claimed on his Truth Social account at the time that the “nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax.” The Justice Department released later in August a heavily redacted version of the affidavit justifying the Mar-a-Lago raid, and Trump replied, “Affidavit heavily redacted!!! Nothing mentioned on ‘Nuclear,’ a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ, or our close working relationship regarding document turnover — WE GAVE THEM MUCH.”
