Former Defence Secretary Mark Esper said Donald Trump was a known “hoarder” of sensitive documents, describing the former president’s handling of classified files as “unauthorised, illegal and dangerous” in an interview on Sunday.
Esper made the comments on CNN’s State of the Union, telling host Jake Tapper that Trump’s behaviour put national security at risk, and, if proven true, should disqualify him from ever being trusted with state secrets again.
Trump was arraigned last week on 37 charges linked to the files taken from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Federal prosecutors have homed in on Trump’s efforts to keep the documents despite the government’s efforts to return them.
“I mean, it’s just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation’s security at risk. You cannot have these documents floating around. They need to be secured,” Esper said on Sunday. “Imagine if a foreign agent, another country were to discover documents that outline America’s vulnerabilities or the weaknesses of the United States military. Think about how that could be exploited.”
Tapper asked Esper, who was fired in November 2020, if the former president could ever be trusted with classified material again were he elected to the White House in 2024.
“Well, based on his actions, again, if proven true under the indictment by the special counsel, no,” he replied.
“Look, no one is above the law,” he added. “And so I think this process needs to play out and people held to account, the president held to account.”
The former Pentagon chief linked Trump’s actions to those of Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard who is accused of posting secret documents on social media. Teixeira was indicted on Tuesday on six counts and faces up to 60 years in prison.
“We have a case playing out right now in Massachusetts where that young airman from the Massachusetts National Guard is being charged on similar types of accounts under the Espionage Act for taking and retaining unauthorised documents that affected our national defence,” Esper said.
The comments are the latest in a string from a growing chorus among the GOP. Former Attorney General William Barr predicted Trump was “toast” if the charges in the indictment are true. And Rep. Mike Turner (Republican, Ohio), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Tapper on Sunday the indictment was of “grave concern.”
“I can tell you that, from having looked at both of those documents, I have grave concern about both of those type of documents being out in an unsecured place,” Turner said. “Both of them included details of national security issues that should not have been outside of a controlled environment.”