From left: Donald and Melania Trump leave the White House on Jan. 20.Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty
Just days after federal agentsexecuted a search warrantonDonald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in the search for classified documents, a new report describes the final days of the Trump White House as being “part free-for-all, part fire sale,” with some documents from the administration being kept, while other records were “indiscriminately thrown away.”
Two former Trump White House officials toldPoliticothat some records were tossed into so-called “burn bags” and brought to the incinerator — a practice that’s not uncommon in the final days of a president’s tenure, though still traditionally subject to various legal and ethical proceedings.
As the outlet details, the final days of the Trump administration were hectic, and documents were being packed up on the heels of theJan. 6, 2021 Capitol riotsand amid looming impeachment proceedings.
As one former Trump aide put it to Politico: “We were 30 days behind what a typical administration would be.”
The administration was also amid a transition to the Biden team — who Trump himself was claiming had “stolen” the election. Proper storing or handling of government documents, it seems, simply weren’t among the top priorities.
“Part of the MAGA movement is kind of a ‘f— you’ to the government bureaucracy, which you can interpret as the Deep State,” one former Trump staffer told Politico. “People were really dissatisfied with the transition and the outcome of the election. This is the last piece of control that they had in power.”
Neil Eggleston, former Obama White House counsel, offered a similar take, telling Politico Trump likely “denied being defeated so they didn’t really engage in a transition process because he refused to let it happen. So that meant that [White House staffers] were in a fairly frantic situation as the Inauguration Day came.”
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Some were marked as top secret, which theWall Street Journalnotes should only be available in special government facilities.
Among the many boxes of items taken were binders of photos, an unspecified handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency forformer Trump aide Roger Stone. The three-page list of items also showed that information about the president of France was collected.
Politicoreports that the warrant reveals that the FBI is investigating Trump for “removal or destruction of records, obstruction of an investigation, and violating the Espionage Act.” Conviction of those statutes, notes the outlet, “can result in imprisonment or fines.”
Trump has said on his social media platform Truth Social that any documents in his possession had been declassified, though it’s unclear if he had gone through the process to declassify them.
The search of Mar-a-Lago comes after FBI agents and a senior Justice Department national security supervisor reportedly visited the resort in early June in regards to boxes of classified documents sitting in the property’s basement, officials followed up with Trump’s lawyer, with instructions to install a stronger lock on the storage room door.
Trump reportedly assured officials at the time that he had no more classified materials, but weeks later, “someone familiar with the stored papers told investigators there may be still more classified documents at the private club,” perThe Wall Street Journal.
source: people.com
