Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) came to former President Donald Trump’s defense over the weekend, claiming that concerns over classified documents that Trump removed from the White House and improperly kept at his Mar-a-Lago residence were overblown.
Interview with reporters from Milwaukee-based ABC News affiliate WISNJohnson seemed unconcerned that documents with the highest national security clearances were kept in a storage unit at the Palm Beach property.
“I think Mar-a-Lago is a pretty safe place,” Johnson saidHe also stated that the Secret Service protected the former president and his family.
“I’m not overly concerned about some top secret information being leaked out,” he went on.
Johnson, a Trump loyalist, was once chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. a number of Republican lawmakers who have come to Trump’s defenseSince August 8th, when Mar-a-Lago was raided by the FBI In an interview last Wednesday, Johnson decried the search warrant that was executed on the estate as a “weaponization of our law enforcement agencies against Democrats’ and the left’s political opponents.”
“This is scandalous, it’s corruption,” he said.
Mar-a-Lago has been discussing security issues for a long time. The Secret Service provides physical security for Trump and his family members. the agency is not responsible for checking whether guests or members of the club pose a security problem. The agency also noted that the setup of Mar-a-Lago makes it challengingAgents to fulfill their duties.
“The foreign visitors there and others who might have connections with foreign governments and foreign agents — creates a significant national security threat,” said Mary McCord, former Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Department of Justice, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
Johnson’s claims that the Mar-a-Lago raid was politically motivated have also been dismissed by national security experts and historians, who have said that officials Protocols to be followed and handled the matter “by the book.”
The majority of Americans agree with this assessment. Politico/Morning Consult poll that was published last week, 49 percent of registered voters said that they approve of the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, while only 37 percent said that they disapprove. The poll was conducted August 10th. an inventory list of the materials that were seized was made public, which revealed that some documents contained Information about nuclear weapons.
The warrant stated that Trump could have violated the Espionage Act by harboring documents at his estate. Some of the material that the FBI retrieved included Sensitive Compartmented InformationIt is not intended to be removed from a specialized facility.
The polling data suggests that Americans are mostly satisfied with the search on Trump’s property. But because a number of Republicans have come to the former president’s defense — including Johnson, who is up for reelection this fall — the issue could play a role in the outcome of the midterm elections.
Johnson is one the most vulnerable incumbent senators who are up for reelection. The two candidates in Johnson’s race against Democratic nominee Mandela Barnes are tied statistically. according to a Marquette Law School poll conducted in June. According to the poll, Barnes has the support 46 percent of Wisconsin voters while Johnson has the support 44 percent.
