‘The Secret Service Doesn’t Protect Boxes’: MSNBC Analyst Warns Mar-A-Lago Was a ‘Giant and Porous Target’ for Foreign Adversaries
NBC News national security analyst Frank Figliuzzi gave a somber assessment of the revelations in the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump regarding the classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, describing the high likelihood that foreign intelligence services were targeting them and may have accessed them.
On Friday, the Department of Justice unsealed a federal indictment against the ex-president with 37 criminal counts spelling out how Trump retained boxes of documents that “included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign counties; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to foreign attack.”
Some of the most shocking allegations in the indictment relate to communications from Trump, his family members, his attorneys, and other staffers acknowledging that he had retained classified information that had not been declassified — plus the now-viral photos showing boxes of documents that allegedly contained classified information, stacked up in bathrooms, ballroom stages, storage rooms, and other nonsecure areas.
Figliuzzi appeared on MSNBC Friday afternoon to react to the indictment, and anchor Chris Jansing asked him, “from a national security standpoint, what do you see when you see these boxes and how they were stored?”
“Historically, foreign intelligence services have always attempted to penetrate a second home or summer residence or winter residence of a president, and this would be no exception,” Figliuzzi replied.
Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago “was a huge target, a huge bull’s eye for foreign intel services,” the former assistant FBI director replied, noting the public reports about Chinese nationals being able to get into Mar-a-Lago, as well as “people associated with Russia and other Eastern Bloc countries.”
“I’m here to tell you that it was a giant and porous target,” Figliuzzi continued, “and I’m also here to tell you that the Secret Service was not responsible for some the areas cited in this indictment in terms of protecting. The Secret Service doesn’t protect boxes, and nor do they cover the domain, the area in which the protectee is not living and working in. They just protect him. So the likelihood that a foreign service had access or attempted to get access to these places and these papers is quite high.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
