In his final weeks in office, President Trump was consumed by a desire to reverse his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, according to the New York Times.
By the end of Trump’s presidency, many of the president’s closest aides and advisors had either departed or had largely checked out.
The departures of Trump’s staff left a void that was filled by people like Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer, and others who peddled conspiracy theories like Sidney Powell, an attorney.
There were aides who “were either preoccupied with helping him overturn the election, trying to stop him or avoiding him” at the time, according to The Times report.
Multiple boxes of important documents and records were successfully removed from the White House by Trump and returned to his Mar-a-Lago club and winter residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Negotiations are ongoing with the National Archives to return the boxes to their custody.
Several dozen boxes of White House materials, records, and other items that Trump was supposed to turn over under the Presidential Records Act were reported missing by both The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Official presidential correspondence and documentation, including memos, letters, emails, text messages, and social media posts must be properly preserved by White House officials in accordance with the law.
At least one piece of clothing, as well as letters from Kim Jong Un to Trump, a handwritten note from Obama, a Sharpie-drawn map of the possible path of an Alabama hurricane, and other items, were found in the boxes.
Donald Trump may have broken a law passed after the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, according to experts who told The Post.
To be clear: 15 boxes of records and materials from Mar-a-Lago have been “arranged transport” and are now in the National Archives’ custody.
President Trump and his staff are “continuing to search for additional Presidential records that belong to the National Archives,” it said.
Archivist David Ferriero stated in a statement that compliance with the act was “critical to our democracy, in which government is accountable to the people” and that “there should be no question as to the need for diligence and vigilance.
Insider’s request for comment from a Trump spokesperson went unanswered.
Act and other federal record-keeping laws can be enforced by the agency only with limited resources. Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney has announced that she will launch an investigation into the Trump administration’s noncompliance with federal records laws, reports Politico.
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As Politico first reported in 2018, Trump’s practice of tearing up official White House documents in order to destroy or dispose of them is now affecting the House select committee looking into the January 6, 2021 uprising.
“Paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump” are among the 700 documents that the National Archives has given to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
They claimed that some documents that had been torn apart had not been properly reassembled using tape.
Additionally, the Trump White House routinely shredded documents and sent them to the Pentagon to be destroyed, according to The Post.