Virginia Sen. Mark Warner supports the U.S. Department of Justice in its investigation of former President Donald Trump’s Florida beach resort, Mar-a-Lago.
Warner, a Democrat and chair of the Senate Select Committee, responded after a court released a redacted version of the affidavit which prompted federal law enforcement to search Mar-a-Lago.
“It appears, based on the affidavit unsealed this morning, that among the improperly handled documents at Mar-a-Lago were some of our most sensitive intelligence — which is one reason the Senate Intelligence Committee has requested, on a bipartisan basis, a damage assessment of any national security threat posed by the mishandling of this information,” Warner said in a press release.
The affidavit states that the Federal Bureau of Investigation found 184 documents with classification markings. Twenty-five documents were marked TOP SECRET. Other documents were labeled with indication that they contain “information on clandestine human sources.”
Mar-a-Lago, Spanish for sea to lake, is a national historic landmark. Built from 1924 to 1927 by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the breakfast cereal heiress, the 126-room mansion has contained the Mar-a-Lago Club since 1994.
Post bequeathed the property to the National Park Service upon her death in 1973 and hoped it would become the Winter White House. Trump purchased the property in 1985, where he lived for eight years. His family continues to keep private quarters in a separate part of the house, and, as president, Trump visited Mar-a-Lago. Trump hosted international meetings at the Palm Beach County resort.
Trump and wife, Melania, chose Mar-a-Lago as their primary residence in September 2019. When Trump left the White House in January 2021, he transported a large volume of presidential records to the residence. The U.S. Justice Department sent a subpoena to Trump in June 2022 requesting documents marked classified. A search warrant was presented Aug. 8 2022, by FBI agents to search the residence.
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Rebecca Barnabi
