It was problematic enough when we learned that Donald Trump spent his entire presidency ignoring federal law, blowing off his aides’ pleas, and habitually tearing up official White House documents. But the Mar-a-Lago angle added a fresh dimension to the larger mess.
The Washington Post was first to report that officials with the National Archives and Records Administration had to go to Mar-a-Lago last month in order to retrieve documents — materials that were supposed to have been turned over to the records-keeping agency — that the former president had “improperly removed.”
The Republican’s team denied there was anything nefarious about this, telling the Post that 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 Trump by President Barack Obama.”
Seeing this, a reader might’ve assumed the former president’s haul was modest. As NBC News reported, that assumption would not have been correct.
Former President Donald Trump had to return 15 boxes of documents that were improperly taken from the White House, the National Archives said Monday.
In a written statement issued yesterday afternoon, the National Archives said, “In mid-January 2022, NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) arranged for the transport from the Trump Mar-a-Lago property in Florida to the National Archives of 15 boxes that contained Presidential records, following discussions with President Trump’s representatives in 2021.”
Let’s go ahead and note for the record that 15 boxes of “improperly removed” presidential materials represents an amazing collection of documents. Yes, other modern presidents have been tripped up by the records act — taking with them materials they thought belonged to them personally, instead of official materials that belong in the Archives — but this is qualitatively and quantitatively different.
What’s more, the number of boxes may yet grow. NBC News’ report added that the records agency “said it believes Trump still has more records that need to be turned over and that ‘Trump’s representatives have informed NARA that they are continuing to search for additional presidential records that belong to the National Archives.’”
As for how in the world the former president ended up with at least 15 boxes worth of official materials he wasn’t supposed to keep, The New York Times reported, “The boxes contained items taken from the White House’s residence during a hasty exit after Mr. Trump had spent the bulk of the presidential transition trying to find ways to stay in power, according to two people familiar with the process of how the boxes were returned. At the time, Mr. Trump’s aides were either preoccupied with helping him overturn the election, trying to stop him or avoiding him.”
This is certainly the most benign explanation. Team Trump wasn’t trying to get away with pilfering boxes filled with official documents that didn’t belong to the former president, the argument goes, it was simply engaged in a process that was hapless because White House officials were too busy dealing with a constitutional crisis of their own making.
The less benign explanation, of course, is that the Republicans deliberately tried to simply take a whole lot of documents that didn’t belong to them. A lawyer who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office under Barack Obama added, “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]. Why has it taken a year for these boxes to get there?” Update: Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, announced plans overnight to “fully investigate” the appearance of 15 boxes of documents and other items at the Mar-a-Lago resort. “The reporting on former President Trump’s apparent removal of presidential records and his failure to turn the records over to the National Archives for over a year is deeply troubling — but not surprising,” the New York congresswoman told the Post in a statement last night. “I sounded the alarm in December 2020 about the danger that the former president and senior Trump Administration officials were not properly transferring presidential records to the National Archives and unfortunately, we now know that was the case. I plan to fully investigate this incident to ensure the law is followed and records from the Trump Administration are with the National Archives where they belong, rather than stashed away in Trump’s golf resorts.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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