A veteran CIA counter-intelligence official voiced dismay and disbelief on CNN’s “New Day” the morning after the Washington Post revealed that the FBI was dispatched to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property with a search warrant on a tip that he possessed top secret nuclear secrets.
Phil Mudd, a senior analyst on the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, told presenters Brianna Keilar and John Berman that the former president may have had records “at his beach home” that he would have been forbidden from reading in his former job.
“I’m going to read the Washington Post article here because it’s really precise,” host Berman suggested. “‘Classified materials linked to nuclear weapons, they were among the goods the FBI agents requested.” “If those were at Mar-a-Lago, why would the Department of Justice, the FBI, evidently the counterintelligence branch of the FBI since that’s who signed off on it, why wouldn’t they want them there?”
“Well, if you compare the security at a place like the Department of Justice to the security in a place like the Department of Energy, are you kidding me?” Mudd responded angrily. “One of the reasons the Department of Justice would have asked simple questions based on the footage from Mar-a-Lago that you would never have to ask if these papers were properly safeguarded.”
“For example, who brought the items in? Do we still have the items they brought in, or did they disappear on another day? “He went on. “More importantly, who went into the room? With national security information on nuclear weapons in that room, I promise you that not everyone who went in there had the necessary clearance.”
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“So you have no idea what’s inside. You have no idea who is using it. You don’t know if those folks know how to keep such information safe “Mudd, irritated, said. “I’m at a loss for words, John. You’re keeping nuclear material at a beach home that I couldn’t inspect at the CIA.”
