The 'DOJ should open an investigation into the whereabouts' of Trump’s 'missing binder': ex-FBI official

With ex-President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago classified documents case already "running about four months behind schedule," CNN reported last week that a 10-inch binder containing "raw" and "unredacted" Russian intelligence has been missing since he left the White House.

In a Monday, December 18 MSNBC op-ed, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi argues, "If it hasn’t happened already, the DOJ should open an investigation into the whereabouts of the missing binder," because "the binder was not found in the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago, and there's no sign that pursuit of the materials was incorporated into that case."

He writes, "Here we are, almost three years after Trump left office, and we've yet to see the former president held accountable for mishandling and misusing highly classified documents," despite the indictment.

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"At a time when accountability is most needed, justice is lacking," the columnist adds.

Figliuzzi insists, "The case of the missing binder is also a clue as to what Trump would likely do with classified information if he’s given access to secret material again." He "ordered the binder material declassified, and had it relocated to the White House from a locked 'safe within a safe' inside the CIA, so he could use national secrets for his own benefit. Specifically, he argued on Twitter that the documents pertained to 'the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax,' suggesting that some secrets therein might clear his name and undermine the FBI's investigation."

The FBI alum adds, "There's nothing to indicate he would change his ways in a second term, even if that means helping Russia to help himself."

READ MORE: Highly-classified intel on Putin and Russia went missing in Trump’s final White House days

Figliuzzi's full op-ed is here.