Republicans Seems to Think a Bathroom Is an Acceptable Place to Store Nuclear Secrets

Nikki McCann Ramirez
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) thinks it’s totally cool to keep sensitive, extremely classified state nuclear secrets in your bathroom, because bathrooms have locks.

On Monday, McCarthy was asked by a reporter at the Capitol if it was a “good look” for Donald Trump to keep boxes containing classified documents in his bathroom. The question referenced images included in the Justice Department’s indictment of former president Donald Trump that show he had stored boxes in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.

“I don’t know,” McCarthy responded. “Is it a good picture to have boxes in a garage that opens up all the time? A bathroom door locks.”

McCarthy is referring to the ongoing investigation into documents uncovered at President Biden’s Delaware residence, some of which were stored in the president’s garage.

“[You] have a lot of these documents behind a Corvette in a garage with the door wide open,” McCarthy added. “You’ve got a son of, Hunter Biden, who knows who he had there, in and out.”

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) defended Trump storing the material in his bathroom, too, explaining on Tuesday that there are 33 bathrooms at Mar-a-Lago and not everyone can get into all of them.

While classified materials were recovered from Biden’s residence and office, the Justice Department’s case against Trump is heavily focused on the former president’s alleged efforts to obstruct the government’s recovery of, and investigation into, the documents.

Alongside violations of the Espionage Act, the 37 counts brought against Trump include charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, corruptly concealing a record or document, and concealing a document in a federal investigation.

Aside from storing the documents in unsecured locations, investigators say they have obtained evidence that Trump showed classified materials to individuals who lacked the appropriate security clearance. One such piece of evidence is a recording of a July 2021 meeting during which Trump discussed a document he had that was “like, highly confidential.”

“Secret. This is secret information,” Trump said. “Look, look at this.”

“See as president I could have declassified it … Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.” he added.

Despite Trump’s claims that “everything about the boxes was so neat, orderly, and clean,” it’s clear that at least some of the classified material retained by the former president were taken out of the boxes and mishandled, and that these boxes were stored in insecure locations.

As neatly as the boxes may have been stacked in the president’s commode, his bathroom is no secure bunker for government secrets. As Kevin McCarthy surely knows, they typically only lock from the inside.

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