CNN host grills Mick Mulvaney over Trump's handling of classified info: 'Documents flushed down the toilet!'

On CNN Thursday, anchor Brianna Keilar put former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney under a microscope when he tried to cast aspersions on the FBI's investigation of classified documents hoarded at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach, Florida.

"You folks know I've been critical of the president's conduct on January 6th," said Mulvaney. "But if it is just about documents, that's almost absurd. That's the same thing that the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton for, and I don't remember them invading her home. If you are Republican, the reason you're asking to act the way you are, the last 48 hours, is that you really do feel like you're not getting fair treatment from your own government and that's a very dangerous place to be."

"But there are pictures of documents Donald Trump flushed down the toilet," cut in Keilar. "Does he not get the benefit of the doubt as well?"

"Sure, I think that's worth investigating," said Mulvaney. "Keep in mind, what was that piece of paper? It had Elise Stefanik's name on it."

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"Mick, we can't — in fairness, Mick, it was torn up," said Keilar. "We don't know what was on it. That's just a fact."

"It says Stefanik on it," repeated Mulvaney.

"One word, it said a lot of other — we don't know what the whole document said," said Keilar. "You can see Stefanik's name was on there but you can't extrapolate from just one word."

"I'm not defending destroying documents," said Mulvaney. "I don't think this was related to the Presidential Records Act directly. It is not a criminal statute. It is in code 44 of the USC, not 18, the criminal statute. I'm not really sure how the Presidential Records Act ties in. Yes, the president has to keep almost everything, but not everything when you are the president. Again, if we're talking about documents, that's part of my point here, Brianna. You just invaded the home of a former president of the United States, to look for documents? Why was it so important? Why couldn't it be handled by a subpoena?"

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