Classified Documents Seized at Trump’s Home Undergoing Security-Risk Assessment

Ms. Haines told lawmakers in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that her office would lead an intelligence-community assessment of “the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.”

The intelligence chief provided no other details about the assessment in the brief letter, dated Friday, which was sent to House Intelligence Committee Chairman

Adam Schiff

(D., Calif.) and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman

Carolyn Maloney

(D., N.Y.).

In a statement Saturday, Reps. Schiff and Maloney welcomed the damage assessment.

The affidavit partially unsealed on Friday “affirms our grave concern that among the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago were those that could endanger human sources,” they wrote. “It is critical that the [intelligence community] move swiftly to assess and, if necessary, to mitigate the damage done.”

A damage assessment includes identifying disclosed or compromised national-intelligence information, including of spy agencies’ sources and methods; a description of the circumstances under which the incident occurred; and an estimate of the actual or potential damage to U.S. national security.

Boxes retrieved from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home early this year contained more than 184 classified documents, including some deemed top-secret or derived from clandestine human-intelligence sources, according to a heavily redacted affidavit released Friday laying out the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s justification for its extraordinary search of the Florida estate in early August.

Mr. Schiff and Ms. Maloney had written to Ms. Haines on Aug. 13 asking for a damage assessment following reports that Mr. Trump had removed and retained highly classified information at Mar-a-Lago.

In her letter Friday, Ms. Haines said her office and the Justice Department are working together on a classification review of the apparently mishandled documents.

A spokesman for Ms. Haines said the review she is leading is consistent with a request from Sens.

Mark Warner

(D., Va.), and

Marco Rubio

(R., Fla.), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Warner said on Friday that the committee had made a bipartisan request for information on the classified documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago and the national security threat posed by their mishandling.

In Florida, U.S. District Court judge

Aileen M. Cannon

said in a short filing that she was prepared to appoint a special master—but that her order wasn’t final. She scheduled a Thursday hearing for arguments on the matter.

The judge also ordered the Justice Department to file under seal a more detailed receipt showing what property was seized during the Aug. 8 search and a status update on investigators’ review of the items.

A special master is a respected third party, usually a retired judge, tasked with reviewing evidence and filtering out irrelevant materials or communications protected by attorney-client privilege, executive privilege or similar legal doctrines.

Mr. Trump’s legal team on Aug. 22 filed a motion requesting the appointment of such a position, calling the FBI search a “shockingly aggressive move,” and asked the judge to order investigators to immediately stop examining the items.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote in their motion that the appointment of a special master is “the only appropriate action.”

Sen.

Roy Blunt

(R., Mo.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that the appointment of a special master would help sort through the controversy.

“Good thing they’re going to have a special master…sort through the documents that the president had every right to have and the documents that he hadn’t yet turned over,” Mr. Blunt said. “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.”

New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu criticized the Justice Department for not making more information publicly available about its investigation.

“I’m not saying, put all the documents on the internet. But give us some sense of the subject matter. Give us some sense of the timing,” Mr. Sununu said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “You had pages upon pages upon pages redacted, to the point where you say, ‘Well, what’s the point?’”

Sen.

Elizabeth Warren

(D., Mass.) said it is critical for the Justice Department to push on with its investigation “without fear or favor.”

“I am deeply alarmed about what we’re learning,” Ms. Warren said on CNN, saying Mr. Trump “could be putting our national security at risk, he could be putting the lives of individual people who work for the United States at risk.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.), who is retiring from Congress and was one of 10 GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach Mr. Trump on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, said members of Congress who mishandled classified information in this way would “be in real trouble.”

“No president should act this way, obviously,” Mr. Kinzinger said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Alex Leary and Timothy Puko contributed to this article.

Write to Warren P. Strobel at Warren.Strobel@wsj.com, Siobhan Hughes at Siobhan.hughes@wsj.com and Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team earlier this week filed a motion requesting the appointment of a special master. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the motion was filed last week. (Corrected on Aug. 27)