This is a Cato Special Podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. How serious are the claims that a former

president of the United States took highly sensitive classified material to his home

post-presidency, whereupon his attorneys incorrectly stated that the former

president had earlier this year given back all of the relevant documents.

Following the FBI search of the former president's home, the agency came away with numerous

moxes and materials. Julian Sanchez, a founding editor at Just Security and Cato Institute

Senior Fellow Patrick Edington, offered their thoughts.

Pat, let me start with you.

You know your way around the system that governs secrecy in federal government documents.

What is your general assessment based upon what you know of this chronology

that has rolled out between the federal government, the National Archives and the Trump Administration.

In a blog post that I wrote about this little episode, the afternoon that the Marilago search warrant, the FBI's Marilogu search warrant was unsealed.

I used the phrase per loined documents to describe this rather than using the word

steel.

This just doesn't't in a normal administration and I think we have we have to kind of you know put that that

caveat out there in a normal administration

This just wouldn't happen

This kind of material, you know, particularly material that has the designator of sensitive compartment and information.

This generally applies to signal intelligence

coming out of the National Security Agency,

although it can apply to other baskets

of highly sensitive information as well.

...