told them look but don t read is not a standard you will find in any security protocol. i have spent years working in cases and skiffs. i m not allowed to bring someone into a skif and say don t look at the table or documents. that s not how this is done. the problem is really what happened after november 2nd. even if we assume that the white house did not know that there was potentially classified information or documents if the penn biden office, they clearly knew that after november 2nd. yet we re hearing that until quite recently, they were still using uncleared counsel. the question is why? this is the president of the united states. he has got a large staff of security officers. he has the f.b.i. they all could have been used for this purpose. i this i the only answer is that they wanted that added buffer and control of using private counsel. bill: interesting.
violations of the national security policy. john: and gillian, you were at the national security council at the white house. i m not making this up, i used to do it for a living. john: she knows what she speaks. usually you have to look at the documents in a skiff, a secure facility, i don t think the former vice president had installed in his garage, as he was backing the corvette in, did not look like typical i ve seen before. was it legitimate for him to have classified documents in his possession as the outgoing vice president? possibly. in the sense that vice president and presidents are given this courtesy by the federal government when they leave office, allowed to keep security clearances and skiffs, secure facilities at their home. so, a lot of presidents will have secure facilities built in
mar-a-lago that the former president lied about having possession of and loathed to give up? well, it s hard to be surprised about anything we learned that donald trump might have done. still, this is quite shocking. now, i don t know about the documents that were found, but based on carol s description, it sounds as though these are documents that are part of special access programs, s.a.p.s. these are the documents most highly sensitive and highly restricted within the u.s. government. and some of these programs deal specifically with nuclear capabilities, whether it s or own capabilities, the nuclear capabilities of our allies or adversaries. and these documents usually are kept in saves inside of skiffs. so it s not just that they re in skiffs, but they re in saves. and there is what s called a list that certain individuals are authorized to see these documents. they have to be signed in and signed out. and so when i worked at the white house, in president obama s first term, dep
seeing these. but when you see the cover sheets and those of us who work with classified information in the past know that it is nearly impossible to misplace a document that has a big square red or yellow or other colored cover that is on it and so to have those out in open storage, whether they are in boxes that are not a secure place, a room that s not an approved facility or certainly in a desk drawer, it s just impossible to not know that that is inappropriate and illegal. and to the point so having both of us been in skiffs, secret compartmented facilities, there are some times desks in there but it s a secure facility. part of the issue isn t donald trump s access to the documents or having them in a desk, it s who else could have seen them, had access to them and photographed them and that s a significant national security risk. when we are looking at this filing it s an argument against
classified that they were only supposed to be viewed in the high security-level rooms called skiffs here in d.c. so there s concern about whether or not how those documents are handled, whether or not information could get into the wrong places that it s not meant to go. now, of course, here boris and amara, there s a diplomatic aspect it to. because on the inventory list we know there was listed a line about french president emmanuel ma macron. now the white house doesn t know what it was. neither the white house or the french embassy, they both declined to comment here. there s some concern officials say of whether or not it could imperil diplomatic relations. it really is there on two fronts here. the white house is certainly concerned about this, especially when it comes to how they collect intelligence and of course relations with their sources. jasmine wright, appreciate your reporting. thank you. and here to discuss this further is michael zeldin, the host of that said with