Trump intimidated staffers, making them reluctant to challenge the erratic way he treated classified information, Washington Post reports
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Donald Trump would intimidate White House staffers, The Washington Post reported.
This meant they didn't challenge him over how he handled classified information, the report said.
Trump is suspected by the Justice Department of wrongly taking classified info after leaving office.
Former President Donald Trump's aides struggled to challenge his handling of classified documents because he "intimidated" them, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The former president is under FBI investigation for his handling of classified information. Agents raided his Mar-a-Lago residence in August and found troves of documents he hadn't handed back to them, including highly classified information.
Fourteen former Trump administration officials told the Post that Trump routinely ignored the protocols for handling classified information while in office and would take transcripts of calls with foreign leaders, as well as material from intelligence briefings, to his private residence.
The Post cited several of the former aides as saying Trump had a pattern of "intimidating staffers who might try to take secret intelligence material away from him."
"They didn't challenge him," one former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Post.
But some senior officials attempted to establish order in the way classified material was handled, the report said, while aides sought to circumvent what one described as Trump's "sticky fingers" approach to documents.
They would retrieve documents he had torn up in his private residence, tape them together, and return them to the National Archives, while others made it a habit not to leave classified information lying around in his presence, the report said.
A representative for Trump declined to comment to the Post on the specifics of its report but pointed the publication to a past statement.
"President Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution and the Office of the Presidency, ensuring the integrity of America for generations to come," the statement said.
Read the original article on Business Insider
