Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham claimed former President Donald Trump had “no respect for classified information” and had shown top-secret documents to people at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
During an interview on MSNBC’s segment of “Alex Witt Reports” Grisham expressed her displeasure to host Alex Witt, sharing she had seen Trump show documents to people at Mar-a-Lago.
“I watched him show documents to people at Mar-a-Lago on the dining room patio,” said Grisham on Saturday in response to Witt asking whether it was “plausible” Trump had shown classified documents to people in private. “He has no respect for classified information, never did.”
Grisham said she gets “angry” every time she listens to the audio recording released by CNN in which the former president can be heard allegedly discussing classified documents.
During the audio recording, Trump can be heard allegedly discussing confidential military documents with a writer and publisher, who had been working on a memoir for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. This conversation allegedly took place during a July 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, and two staff members for Trump were also present, according to CNN.
"I watched him show documents to people at Mar-a-Lago on the dining room patio. He has no respect for classified information [and] never did," Former Trump Press Secretary @OMGrisham tells @AlexWitt about Trump's mishandling of classified docs. https://t.co/hahnNc0CpC pic.twitter.com/a3BFZfwwP8
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 2, 2023
“He talks specifically that he should have declassified it, but he didn’t,” said Grisham, adding she feels Trump was trying to cover “himself” when he said everything is off the record.
Grisham discussed with Witt how hard it was for people to earn their “classified permissions,” sharing how when she was going through the process to get hers, she “got held up because of a $13 kindercare bill” that she didn’t even know about.
During the process to get a security clearance, the government goes “through everything about you,” Grisham shared with Witt, stressing “it’s very difficult to get a security clearance.”
“To be showing it to people who haven’t gone through the extreme vetting that you go through to get a clearance, it’s a disservice to the country, but it also puts people in danger potentially,” said Grisham.
Trump was indicted in early June and charged with 37 federal counts of conspiring to obstruct justice, mishandling classified documents, and for providing false statements.
The indictment filing said, “The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” according to The Hill.
