A former top Trump White House spokesperson has said that the former president “never” showed any sign of understanding the meaning of classification or other methods used to protect national defence secrets during his time in office.
Stephanie Grisham served as Donald Trump’s press secretary and communications director and was also the top spokesperson and chief of staff to former first lady Melania Trump.
Ms Grisham, who has become a fervent critic of her former boss, appeared on MSNBC on Sunday to discuss the former president’s legal situation following his indictment on federal charges over his alleged unlawful retention of national defence information and obstruction of justice.
She said that Mr Trump never exhibited any reverence for how the nation protects important information.
Asked about a report indicating that a top Trump campaign aide, Susie Wiles, has been speaking to prosecutors and could be a witness against Mr Trump, Ms Grisham said she regularly saw him disregard best practices for handling sensitive documents and classified information, including at Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach mansion turned private club where he spent winter weekends as president before making it his primary home post-White House.
“I watched him show documents to people at Mar-a-Lago on the dining room patio,” she said.
“He has no respect for classified information [and] never did.”
The ex-White House spokesperson may have been referring to a now-infamous incident that took place when the late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited Mr Trump at his Florida property.
During Abe’s visit, North Korea made a show of testing a ballistic missile.
Stephanie Grisham served as White House Press Secretary for 12 months— (AFP via Getty Images)
Mar-a-Lago visitors were then treated to an uncommon sight: a sitting president and another world leader using the club’s open-air patio to review classified intelligence on the missile test.
One club member, Jay Weitzman, told The Washington Post at the time that he could see Mr Trump, Abe, and a group of aides reviewing materials on a computer.
“Someone opened up a laptop, and at the table ... a group of Japanese people stood around the prime minister and Donald, and they were all looking at the laptop,” he said.
