“I understand that he handed over a lot of documents. He should have returned them all. I imagine he knows that very well now,” Blunt said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” Blunt avoided answering several questions about whether Trump was right to move the sensitive material from the White House to his Palm Beach, Florida resort before admitting the former president should have turned the documents over to the National Archives, as required the Presidential Records Act. “He should have turned over the documents and obviously he had turned over a lot of documents… What I’m wondering is why this could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election, all of a sudden, we’re talking about that rather than the economy or inflation Blunt said. Blunt questioned the timing of the investigation so close to this year’s midterms, as well as why the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Director of National Intelligence had not flagged the matter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which he is a member. “Why hadn’t we heard anything about it, actually, if the administration was concerned that there was a national security problem?” The FBI seized 11 sets of classified material from Mar-a-Lago when it executed a search warrant there earlier this month. An unsealed warrant shows Trump is under investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws in connection with the documents. The affidavit justifying the FBI’s search warrant for Mar-a-Lago was released in a redacted form last week. Hogan says he won’t endorse any Maryland gubernatorial candidate 6 in 10 Republicans say Trump should be GOP nominee in 2024: survey The Missouri senator also tried to draw parallels between the Trump case and Hillary Clinton, who was under FBI investigation for mishandling emails while she was secretary of state. But he also acknowledged that sensitive government information should be handled appropriately. “You should be careful with classified documents. I had access to such documents a long time ago. I’m incredibly careful,” Blunt said.
