- Sean Hannity told Trump he couldn’t imagine Trump taking the documents out of the White House.
- “I know you,” Hannity said. “I don’t think you do that.”
- Trump corrected Hannity, saying, “I would,” adding that he has the right to “take things.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity said Monday he could not imagine Donald Trump taking classified documents with him as he left the White House. and said he had the right to “take things” as he saw fit.
“I don’t think you’re going to say, ‘I’d like to bring some boxes back from the White House and look at them,'” Hannity told Trump in an interview that aired Monday night. Do you have something to say?”
“I have the right to do that. There is nothing wrong with that,” Trump said.
“I know you,” interrupted Hannity.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” Trump replied, “I have the right to do that.”
“I would,” added the former president.
According to the Justice Department, Trump did just that, refusing to return the records for months after leaving the White House.
Ultimately, the FBI was forced to execute a search warrant to retrieve the documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida. Trump’s recordkeeping is now at the center of a federal criminal investigation into his handling of national security information.
Hannity, who has long been one of the former president’s closest friends, tried to cut him off after Trump said in an interview on Monday that he would turn over the documents from the White House.
“Let’s move on,” Hannity said. But Trump had some other things to say.
He falsely claimed that the Presidential Records Act gave him the “right to take things” and “the right to see things.”
But they have a right to speak and we have a right to speak,” Trump added. “All this should have been resolved. Suddenly they raided Mar-a-Lago — raided Mar-a-Lago with vicious intent.”
The former president continued to claim that he owned several “tapes” that the federal government did not want him to see publicly, including one for which the FBI executed a warrant.
“I’ll take that tape and air that tape,” said Hannity.
“I would you,” Trump replied. “Everyone will take that tape.”
— Nicky McCan Ramirez (@NikkiMcR) March 28, 2023
Trump’s lawyer repeatedly invoked the Presidential Records Act When he argued that it was justified to move records out of the White House after he resigned.
They could reasonably have viewed some 100 classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago, in particular, as his personal property, and the court ruled that “judicial oversight of such classification Legal experts, however, have made extensive statements about the PRA, which would give the government control over all but a small fraction of the records made or received by the president and his staff. He said that he seems to have a different view.
Federal prosecutors have largely dismissed the allegations, as have Trump’s public claims that he declassified all government records recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
The Justice Department said Trump was “primarily seeking to question the classification status of records and their classification under the Presidential Records Act (“PRA”).” Last year, in a filing, he said“But plaintiffs do not actually claim, much less provide evidence, that any of the seized records bearing the classified classification mark were declassified.”
Additionally, the former president has frequently claimed to have a “standing order” to declassify all records transferred to Mar-a-Lago, but in September more than a dozen former aides , told CNN he didn’t know such a thing. order.