Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is evidently among those concerned a laptop and thumb drive were recently turned over to federal authorities after a Trump aide who was working at his Save America PAC made digital copies of classified documents inappropriately still in the ex-president’s possession.
That aide ostensibly did so without awareness of the documents’ protected status, and initial reporting on those details from CNN didn’t identify the contents of the materials. The idea, though, of an aide to Trump at a political organization of his making electronic copies of federally protected files for who knows what aims isn’t exactly reassuring about some of the possibilities here! Schiff made a connection to longstanding GOP outrage over a laptop reports tied to Hunter Biden — who unlike Trump is both not in government and doesn’t seem to have any intentions of changing that. The predictable lack of a similarly aggressive response from Republicans like Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), who is leading a House panel on the so-called weaponization of government in this new Congress, reveals glaring hypocrisy.
“I know how obsessed Republicans are with laptops,” Schiff said Saturday. “Maybe now that a laptop with classified material has been found at Mar-a-Lago, they will show some interest in the former president’s willful failure to turn over classified info. Roll up your sleeves, Jim.” Jordan’s special committee has already hosted a hearing, where Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who was appearing as a witness, outlined some of the dangers of reckless and deceptive rhetoric about supposed misconduct by the government. He also reminded his listeners of a slew of examples of what could be argued was actually weaponization of the government that it doesn’t seem Jordan’s panel will focus upon, including Trump repeatedly firing oversight officials when in office. Jordan could decide to work on developing legislative safeguards against that abuse of power. Instead, it’s just more of the same.
Additional physical copies of classified materials were also recently provided to federal investigators by the Trump team, which followed the already reported incident of a third-party team finding additional classified documents at a southern Florida storage unit (which was not an infamous storage facility on the site of Mar-a-Lago itself, which has also figured into the saga of these materials).
In other news related to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the handling of these protected documents, his team has now heard grand jury testimony from Evan Corcoran, a lawyer to Trump whose involvement here includes drafting an infamous statement that claimed everything covered by a much earlier federal subpoena demanding the classified documents in Trump’s possession was getting returned. That wasn’t actually true. The lawyer who eventually signed the statement, Christina Bobb, has also answered investigators’ questions multiple times.
I know how obsessed Republicans are with laptops.
Maybe now that a laptop with classified material has been found at Mar-a-Lago, they will show some interest in the former president’s willful failure to turn over classified info.
Roll up your sleeves, Jim.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 11, 2023
