Opinion | Republicans like Roy Blunt won’t say Trump’s actions are wrong

STEPHANOPOULOS: Was he right to take these documents to Mar-a-Lago?

SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO): Well, I think we need to know more about the documents.

One of the things I was concerned about when I heard about this so-called raid or seizing of these documents was, why hadn’t the Intelligence Committee that I’ve been on for my time in the Senate and time in the House, why hadn’t we heard anything about this, in fact, if the administration was concerned that there was a national security problem? …

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Senator, that’s —

BLUNT: — if there’s a problem, the Oversight Committee should have been told.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s a fair point and we’ll find out why they weren’t or what was going on. It was probably to protect the criminal investigation.

But setting that aside, whether or not these documents were classified, was it right for the president to take these government documents which he is supposed to turn over to the National Archives down to Mar-a-Lago?

BLUNT: It was — you should be careful with classified documents. I’ve had access to documents like that for a long time. I’m incredibly careful.

I was wondering as I was listening to that discussion if the same things were said when Secretary Clinton had documents, when Director Comey had documents, they had them on the Internet which is much more dangerous than having them in a box somewhere.

But everybody needs to be more careful about how these documents —

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, you’re still not answering —

BLUNT: We need to be sure we don’t characterize them differently.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, you’re still not — you’re not answering the question. You were critical of Senator 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 right or wrong? Do you believe it was right for the president to take those documents to Mar-a-Lago?

BLUNT: He should have turned the documents over and apparently had turned a number of documents over, George. What I wonder about is why this could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election, suddenly, we’re talking about this rather than the economy or inflation or even the student loan program you and I were going to talk about today?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, it went on because the president didn’t turn over the documents, correct? He was asked several times. He didn’t turn them over. He was subpoenaed, he didn’t respond to the subpoena. . . .

BLUNT: I understand he turned over a lot of documents. He should have turned over all of them. I imagine he knows that very well now as well.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, he hasn’t said that. He said he did nothing wrong.