Donald Trump’s ex-Defense secretary, Mark Esper believes that the former president is a national security threat, even as Trump seeks another four years in office.
Esper told CNN on Sunday that Trump should not be trusted with the nation’s secrets if the charges brought by the DOJ over his alleged mishandling of classified documents prove to be true.
“Based on his actions, again, if proven true under the indictment by the special counsel, no,” Esper told Jake Tapper when asked the question.
“It’s just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation security risk. You cannot have these documents floating around. They need to be secured,” he said. “We know how that happens. Only authorized persons that are allowed to receive documents or receive information from documents. So we’ve got to take this very seriously. These are serious issues.”
According to the indictment, the documents include top secret information about the US nuclear and defense programs.
“If the allegations are true that it contained information about our nation’s security, about our vulnerabilities, about other items, it could be quite harmful to the nation,” Esper said. “And, look, no one is above the law. And so I think this process needs to play out and people held to account, the president held to account.”
Esper served as Trump’s Defense secretary from June 2019 until November 2020 when he was fired in a tweet.
Trump, the current frontrunner in the GOP primary, has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges, including 31 counts of “willful retention of national defense information.”
