The National Archives realized that Trump had kept documents shortly after he left office and spent the next 18 months trying to get them back.
“It is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the Residence of the White House over the course of President Trump’s last year in office and have not been transferred to NARA, despite a determination by Pat Cipollone in the final days of the administration that they need to be,” wrote Gary Stern, the agency’s chief counsel, in an email to Trump lawyers in May 2021, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post.
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The previously unreported email — sent about 100 days after the former president left office with the subject line “Need for Assistance re Presidential Records” — shows just how early Archives officials had realized that many documents were missing from the Trump White House. It also illustrates the myriad efforts Archives officials made to have the documents returned over an 18-month period, culminating with an FBI raid earlier this month at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
There appears to be a vast and expansive paper trail documenting the efforts made by the federal government to get back the documents that Donald Trump stole. Trump’s own lawyers at one point agreed that the documents should be returned.
Donald Trump’s defense of keeping classified documents evaporates more and more with each passing day. The government bent over backward to accommodate Trump, which is something that would not have been done for any other person. For example, Reality Winner was given a prison sentence of five years and three months for mishandling a single classified document.
Trump had more than 700 pages of documents at Mar-a-Lago.
The failed former president got special treatment, and he still wants documents back that he falsely claims are his.
Trump is looking more guilty by the day.
Mr. Easley is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association