Senate Intelligence Committee Demands FBI Briefing on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Raid | Here's Why

The U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence wanted to officially dip its toes in the current FBI investigation on former President Donald Trump's alleged mishandling and retention of government records in his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

Committee chair Mark Warner (D-Virginia) is leading the call for the committee to be briefed by the law enforcement agency as they would want to know the potential damage the mishandling caused to the government.

The committee's vice chair, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida), has already emerged as a major critic of the investigation as he defended Donald Trump.

Why Does the Senate Want to Be Briefed by the FBI?

According to The Guardian, the U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence, through its Democratic chair Mark Warner, demanded that a federal judge allows the committee to be briefed about the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago and the possible damage caused by Donald Trump's hoarding of top-secret White House documents at his Florida residence.

Trump was accused of unlawful retention, and mishandling of top-secret government records after the FBI executed a search warrant on his Mar-a-Lago home - all coming from a National Archives discovery of missing documents.

Warner said in a statement that Trump's alleged mishandling of documents could have "disastrous consequences."

"Some of the documents involved human intelligence, and if that information got out, people will die. If there were penetration of our signals intelligence, literally years of work could be destroyed," the senator from Virginia noted.

He also expressed concern about the country's capability to receive shared intelligence from allies that could be undermined if proven that the records were mishandled.

Last week, Trump's request for a "special master" was granted by Judge Aileen Cannon, a former Trump appointee in Florida.

The judge's legal opinion officially halted the current investigation of the Department of Justice on Trump's documents. However, DOJ officials were appealing the decision to have an independent reviewer checking the seized documents in Mar-a-Lago.

According to Warner, the committee still does not know what are in the documents found in Trump's residence last August 8, underscoring the need for an "essential" briefing. Both Warner and Rubio have requested the FBI briefing.

Marco Rubio: A Key Defender of Donald Trump on Mar-a-Lago Raid?

In an interview with CBS' "Face The Nation," Mark Warner called the Intelligence Committee "one of the last functioning bipartisan committees" in the Senate.

In the past few days, Marco Rubio, a longstanding supporter of Donald Trump, has been questioning the FBI's "full-scale" raid on Mar-a-Lago.

The committee's vice chair has also called for an FBI briefing and requested the National Intelligence Director for more information about the documents.

According to Tampa Bay Times, the Republican senator noted that this was all about a "storage argument."

"They don't deny that he [Trump] should have access to those documents. What they deny is that they were not properly stored. I don't think a fight over storage of documents is worthy of what they've done, which is a full-scale raid," Rubio told NBC 6.

Last month, some legal analysts noted that Donald Trump had violated the Espionage Act, and if proven guilty, he could face 10 years in prison.

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Written by: Ivan Korrs

WATCH: Warner Wants Damage Assessment From Intel Community Over Trump Documents - From CBS Face the Nation