Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney doesn’t know who reportedly tipped off the FBI about which classified documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago resort, but he knows one thing for sure: Whoever it was is probably very high up in Trump’s circle, someone who worked with or around those documents “day to day.”
Appearing on CNN’s “New Day” on Thursday morning, Mulvaney was pressed for his thoughts on the raid of Mar-a-Lago on Monday, which occurred when the FBI executed a legal search warrant on the property for classified documents the twice-impeached former president reportedly took from the White House.
According to new reports, that warrant was obtained after the FBI received intel from an informant on exactly what documents were on the premises and where they were. And while it’s unclear who exactly that informant was – though late night host Jimmy Fallon had a few guesses – Mulvaney noted that whoever it was had to be “really close” to the president to have that kind of information.
“I didn’t even know there was a safe at Mar-a-Lago, and I was the chief of staff for 15 months,” Mulvaney said. “This would be someone who was handling things on the day to day, who knew where documents were. So it would be somebody very close [to the] president. My guess is there’s probably six or eight people who had that kind of information.”
That said, Mulvaney refrained from making any guesses as to who those six to eight people might be, but admitted that people are likely inferring correctly that it was a (perhaps now former) Trump ally who passed the information along.
“I don’t know the people on the inside circle these days, so I can’t give any names of folks who come to mind, but your instinct, I think, is a good one,” Mulvaney added. “If you know where the safe is and you know the documents are in 10 boxes in the basement, you are pretty close to the president.”
