Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) admitted over the weekend that former President Donald Trump was wrong to take government documents and store them at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
During an interview on ABC, Blunt deflected questions from host George Stephanopoulos about whether Trump should have turned over the documents.
"Setting that aside, whether or not these documents were classified, was it right for the president to take these government documents, which he's supposed to turn over to the National Archives, down to Mar-a-Lago?" the host asked.
"You should be very careful with classified documents," Blunt replied. "I've had access to documents like that for a long time. I'm incredibly careful."
The Republican senator then offered to talk about how Hillary Clinton and James Comey handled classified documents.
"Senator, you're still not answering," Stephanopoulos noted. "You're not answering the question. You're critical of Sen. Clinton, who actually turned over what she had, turned over all her devices. What we have here is a situation where the president did not turn over these documents."
"Can you say whether that was right or wrong?" he pressed. "Do you believe it was right for the president to take those documents to Mar-a-Lago?"
"He should have turned the documents over," Blunt answered, "and apparently had turned a number of documents over."
Blunt suggested that the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago could have been political because it occurred within 100 days of an election -- even though Trump is not on the ballot.
"It went on because the president didn't turn over the documents, correct?" the host explained to the senator. "He was asked several times. He didn't turn them over. He was subpoenaed. He didn't respond to the subpoena."
Blunt praised the idea of appointing a special master to decide which documents Trump "had every right to have."
"I understand that he turned over a lot of documents," the senator noted. "He should have turned over all of them. I imagine he knows that very well now as well."
"Well, he hasn't said that," Stephanopoulos pointed out. "He said he did nothing wrong."
