'Never secured in any way': Reporter says anyone at Mar-a-Lago could have seen defense secrets
Former President Donald Trump's indictment for allegedly concealing classified information in boxes at Mar-a-Lago and demanding his attorneys destroy evidence subpoenaed by a federal grand jury is an unprecedent in American history.
But also unprecedented is the extent to which the former president put critical national security secrets at risk, as CNN's Kristen Holmes detailed out on Friday — because the photographed boxes of documents were in areas that had essentially no security at all.
"What do we know about how secure or insecure these documents, these classified documents containing important national secrets were when stored at Mar-a-Lago?" said anchor Jake Tapper.
"Well, I reached out to a Mar-a-Lago member when we got these," said Holmes. "We know it's not a house, it's a club that people have access to. But I wanted to know how much access. Were these pictures familiar to them? This is what this member told me. They said they have never seen anything, including that white and gold ballroom on there, locked. The direct quote is, 'Once you are on the property, you can really go anywhere. I do.' Being a private club, they can't really stop you from going into the public spaces. One thing to note, you do have to be a member to go on the property, but you can also be the guest of a member."
"This has been a long-term issue for security around the former president," Holmes continued. "We know that while he was president, his advance team, his body men, they had very specific protocols in place for when members brought an 'unsavory character' as a guest. That is, limit proximity to the president, not boxes in a room with an event. This source said they had taken guests to the ballroom on multiple occasions. Never had an issue going in and out of there. It was never secured in any way."
"The other thing to note, since he has been president, since these documents were there, we know that the protocols have gone wayside," Holmes added. "He had dinner with Kanye West. None of that was vetted by any staff. All of those protocols were no longer in place, which gives you an idea of who could have been on this property."
"Yeah," said Tapper. "And we should note, I said this earlier, go to Google and Google 'Mar-a-Lago intruder,' and you'll see at least two Chinese nationals were caught on the property; one of them was deported back to China. There is another allegation about somebody who appears to have been a con artist. Those are just the three we know about."
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