This is a major crime and scandal in it's own right, but there's been so much crime this will get lost in the multitude. If Obama tore a corner off one document by accident, it would be a major scandal and crime. Trump ripped up everything he read and tossed it on the floor and kept dozens of boxes of documents that should have been turned over to the archives. I'll bet Trump has other records hidden and they really should get a search warrant, there are grounds and cause to do so
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Boxes of Trump White House records found at Mar-a-Lago resort
Pandora's box(es)?: President
Donald Trump improperly removed multiple boxes from the White House that were last month retrieved by the
National Archives and Records Administration from his Mar-a-Lago residence because they contained documents and other items that should have been turned over to the office,
Jackie,
Josh Dawsey,
Tom Hamburger, and
Ashley Parker report in a scoop this morning.
The recovery of the boxes from Trump’s Florida resort raises new concerns about whether Trump preserved memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president’s official duties, as the Presidential Records Act requires.
And it comes as our colleagues
revealed that some records from the Archives delivered to the House committee probing the Jan. 6 insurrection were torn apart and pieced back together, mirroring a Trump habit several of his former aides
called troubling.
Responding to the discovery of the boxes at Mar-a-Lago, Trump advisers denied any nefarious intent and said the boxes contained mementos, gifts, letters from world leaders and other correspondence. The items included correspondence with North Korean leader
Kim Jong Un, which Trump once described as “
love letters,” as well as a letter left for him by former President
Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with their contents.
Dropping the mic: “
Things that are national security sensitive or very clearly government documents should have been a part of a first sweep — so the fact that it’s been this long doesn’t reflect well on [Trump],” said a member of the White House Counsel's Office under Obama.
“Why has it taken for a year for these boxes to get there? And are there more boxes?”
Why this matters: The Archives has struggled to cope with a president who flouted document retention requirements and frequently ripped up official documents, leaving hundreds of pages taped back together — or some that arrived at the Archives still in pieces. The transfer of these boxes grew out of a discussions between the Archives and the former president’s lawyers that began last year, according to one person familiar with the conversations.
- “The only way that a president can really be held accountable long term is to preserve a record about who said what, who did what, what policies were encouraged or adopted, and that is such an important part of the long-term scope of accountability — beyond just elections and campaigns,” presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky said.
- From a national security perspective, Chervinsky added, if records and documents are not disclosed, “that could pose a real concern if the next administration is flying blind without that information.”
“Out of the ordinary”: All recent administrations have in some ways flouted the law requiring the preservation of presidential records, most often involving the use of unofficial email and telephone accounts. White House documents from multiple administrations also have been retrieved by the Archives after a president has left office.
But personnel familiar with recent administrations said the Trump era stands apart in the scale of the records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. One person familiar with the transfer characterized it as “out of the ordinary. … [the Archives] has never had that kind of volume transfer after the fact like this.”
How does this affect the Jan. 6 investigation? Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee who did not have knowledge of the Mar-a-Lago find, said the overall records situation reflected the “unconventional nature of how this White House operated.”
- “That they didn’t follow rules is not a shock,” Murphy said. “As for how this development relates to the committee’s work, we have different sources and methods for obtaining documents and information that we are seeking.”
Plus, the Archives has very limited enforcement capabilities. The Presidential Records Act operates on the basis of a “gentlemen’s agreement,” as one Archives official phrased it.
“There is a high bar for bringing such cases,” said
Charles Tiefer, former House counsel who teaches at the
University of Baltimore School of Law.
- Typically, Tiefer said, records preservation proceeds by mutual agreement with the occupant of the White House, staff and archivists. “But if there is willful and unlawful intent” to violate the law, then the picture changes, he said, with penalties of up to three years in jail for willfully concealing or destroying public records.
- “You can’t prosecute for just tearing up papers,” he said of Trump. “You would have to show him being highly selective and have evidence that he wanted to behave unlawfully.”
- Neither Trump nor the Archives responded to requests for comment on the Mar-a-Lago box haul.