(NewsNation) — The top intelligence official in the country is now investigating the classified documents found during the FBI’s search Mar-a-Lago and will assess how serious the threat to national security would be if the records got into the wrong hands.
In a letter to top members on the House Intelligence and Oversight committees, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the “threat assessment” is separate from the FBI’s criminal investigation and that her office will work with the Justice Department to do a classification review.
“ODNI will also lead an intelligence community assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents,” Haines wrote, using an acronym for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Neither court filings nor public statements by the DOJ have suggested who may have seen the classified documents being stored at former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate. The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked top secret, during the search on Aug. 8.
According to a redacted version of the search warrant affidavit released Friday, in January the Trump team sent the National Archives and Records Administration another 15 boxes of documents, which included 67 marked confidential, 92 marked secret and 25 marked top secret.
Reps. Adam Schiff and Carolyn Maloney, chairs of the Intelligence and Oversight committees, respectively, said in a joint response to Haines’ letter that the redacted affidavit “affirms our grave concern that among the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago were those that could endanger human sources.”
Haines’ letter comes as a judge has also signaled an “intent” to appoint a special master to independently review the documents recovered in the FBI search. Trump’s team made the request claiming some of the documents the FBI took fall under attorney-client privilege.
Read the letter from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to top members on the House Intelligence and Oversight committees below:
Mar-a-Lago document ‘threat assessment’ by Tom Palmer on Scribd
