Fox’s Chaffetz Claims Mar-a-Lago Docs Were ‘Protected’ by the Secret Service – But Indictment Says the Exact Opposite

 

Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz defended Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents by claiming the Secret Service was responsible for protecting the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate and the documents.

However, the Secret Service was never told the boxes containing the documents were at the property.

That’s according to the indictment unsealed on Friday morning that charges Trump with 37 counts related to the documents. The Department of Justice says Trump willfully retained the documents and thwarted efforts by the federal government to retrieve them.

On Friday’s edition of The Story on Fox News, Chaffetz took issue with the indictment’s inclusion of photographs showing boxes at various locations around Mar-a-Lago, including a ballroom stage and a bathroom.

“I find these photos to be gratuitous at best,” he said, before claiming the Secret Service was responsible for safeguarding the material.

“Remember, Mar-a-Lago is not a place where you just go walk by and go check in,” he said. “These are protected by the United States Secret Service.”

His claim is directly undercut by a passage in the indictment. On page 5, it explicitly states that not only was the Secret Service not responsible for protecting the documents, the agency was not even informed of their presence at the property:

The United States Secret Service (the “Secret Service”) provided protection to TRUMP and his family after he left office, including at The Mar-a-Lago club, but it was not responsible for the protection of TRUMP’s boxes or their contents. TRUMP did not inform the Secret Service that was storing boxes containing classified documents at The Mar-a-Lago club.

As national security analyst Frank Figliuzzi explained to MSNBC on Friday, “The Secret Service doesn’t protect boxes, and nor do they cover the domain, the area in which the protectee is not living and working in.”

Watch above via Fox News.

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Mike is a Mediaite senior editor who covers the news in primetime.