House Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas on Wednesday demanded his Democratic colleagues stand united with the GOP in demanding access to the full affidavit used in the FBI‘s investigation of Donald Trump.
He accused Democrats who were opposed to that of being ‘against transparency’ and ‘running cover’ for the FBI during a heated House Judiciary hearing.
That affidavit was used to obtain a warrant that cleared the way for federal agents to raid the former president’s Mar-a-Lago mansion in early August.
‘What in the hell are my colleagues afraid of and seeing the full unredacted version?’ Roy questioned during the hearing.
‘The American people right now are tired of seeing the power of government being used against them.’
He continued, ‘As a former federal prosecutor in a United States Attorney’s Office, I absolutely respect the many men and women I worked with going after bad guys – something I wish my Democratic colleagues would more often like to do, by the way.’
‘But the power centralized in the FBI under the Attorney General of the United States being used to target American citizens is something that…the People’s House Judiciary Committee should be keenly concerned on a bipartisan basis to try to protect.’
Justice Department officials retrieved classified documents from the Florida property that Trump was meant to leave behind at the White House when he left office last January.
GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas erupted at his colleagues across the aisle on Wednesday over what he says is a lack of ‘transparency’ from Democrats and the DOJ over the FBI’s unannounced search of Mar-a-Lago
But Republicans have led calls for more transparency in what led to the raid, citing the extraordinary circumstance of such a law enforcement action occurring against a former commander-in-chief.
They have also accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of weaponizing the Justice Department against President Joe Biden’s political rival – who he may have to face again in 2024.
Trump and his allies have called for the full affidavit to be released as a matter of public interest.
But others on the right like Roy, who are familiar with the inner workings of law enforcement, have raised national security concerns and called for members of Congress to at least be briefed on the matter.
‘We’re sitting here right now simply wanting to see the entirety of an affidavit so that we can do our oversight duty, our job. If there’s some concern about that, not being able to be seen by the public, we can march down to the [secure facility] right now and go look at the fully unredacted version,’ he offered.
Roy also claimed ‘the power of the FBI can be used, and is used often, to destroy lives.’
The FBI took about 20 boxes worth of files from Mar-a-Lago on August 8, including a set marked as ‘Various classified/TS/SCI documents.’
Federal agents seized about 20 boxes of documents from Trump’s Florida mansion
Some documents he kept there, including in his office desk, had among the highest classification markings and should not have been taken from the White House, according to the DOJ
That label is reserved for an extremely high level of secrecy that includes information from human intelligence sources which could threaten the lives of those sources if placed in the wrong hands.
The unsealed warrant used by the FBI shows Trump is under investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice, among other charges related to his handling of classified documents.
New portions of the affidavit were unsealed by a judge on Tuesday, though for the most part its contents remain under seal.
New information includes that the Justice Department sought ‘any and all surveillance records, videos, images, photographs … from internal cameras’ at Mar-a-Lago between January 10 and June 24.
On Sunday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said he expects to be briefed on what law enforcement took from Mar-a-Lago.
‘[L]et’s remember what’s at stake, and I don’t know what’s in these documents. But if these documents contain human intelligence, people’s lives could be lost, if that’s exposed. If it signals intelligence, things that we’ve invested years on working on can be destroyed,’ Warner told CNN’s State of the Union.
‘If that information that is shared amongst allies was somehow exposed in these documents – that’s why getting to the bottom of this and making a damage assessment – the DOJ effort, we don’t have purview over that, but the damage assessment to our intelligence capabilities is critical that we have.’