Fox anchor John Roberts thinks it could be A-OK to leave stolen, highly classified documents at Donald Trump’s notoriously unsecure Mar-a-Lago home because the documents “had been there for, you know, 18 months and hadn’t fallen into the wrong hands.”

Roberts uttered his jaw-dropping comment in the “news” program America Reports as it covered the release of the redacted affidavit underlying the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. As Media Matters pointed out in an article called, “Fox News can’t decide whether the FBI should’ve gotten another subpoena for Mar-a-Lago or just ignored the whole thing,” Fox did not have one coherent message crafted today:

Fox News responded to the release of an FBI affidavit supporting the search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence by claiming that the search was unnecessary in the first place, arguing the new court document offered no additional information, and ignoring the new information that was included in it.

Several Fox News personalities have either claimed that the FBI should have issued an additional subpoena or otherwise taken less dramatic action in searching Trump’s residence and membership club. The line of questioning implies that Trump and his team were cooperating with the FBI, when in reality they had dragged their feet every step of the way, including by ignoring a grand jury’s subpoena in May.

As of 5 PM EDT, Fox had not mentioned that some of the classified material was marked “Human Control System,” usually a reference to a report from a CIA officer based on a human source, such as a spy or informant, Media Matters further noted.

In other words, Trump had stashed material in his home that could endanger sources, lives and national intelligence. Stealing such sensitive material is bad enough but stashing it at Mar-a-Lago is much, much worse. MSNBC’s Steve Benen reported today on numerous examples of its shockingly poor security.  He cited a 2017 Politico article titled, “Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is heaven — for spies.”

So Roberts’ comment is all the more shocking, especially coming from a supposed journalist.

ROBERTS:  I mean, it sounded like there was a mishmash, a jumble of documents that were all contained in these boxes, and while we don't know because it's all blacked out, did somebody who was stationed at Mar-a-Lago, maybe in a security role, say, "Lookit, this stuff is crazy, it's not being properly stored, it's being stored along with a bunch of other stuff that anybody could go through and we've got to get it now otherwise God forbid it falls into the wrong hands." I mean, that's just speculation on my part. But the fact that this was not archived properly in terms of - a lot of this stuff was sensitive, compartmented information according to this affidavit. It was mixed in with newspaper articles, et cetera.

I mean, maybe they had a legitimate concern that it could fall into the wrong hands or maybe the concern was overblown because it had been there for, you know, 18 months and hadn't fallen into the wrong hands. 

Right, “just asking.”

The fact that Fox can’t seem to settle on a coherent message suggests that the network knows Donald Trump is looking worse and worse. But rather than come out and admit that Trump is a threat to national security, Fox would rather smear the FBI.

You can watch Roberts do his part below, from the August 26, 2022 America Reports, via Media Matters.