National Archives release records about recovery effort
A detailed property inventory of documents and other items seized from former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is seen after the document was released to the public by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in West Palm Beach, Florida, September 2, 2022.
Jim Bourg | Reuters
The National Archives and Records Administration on Monday publicly released a small fraction of communications related to government documents removed by former President Donald Trump and his reported destruction of some White House records.
The communications related to NARA’s efforts to recover those documents, which included letters to Trump from former President Barack Obama and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. They also expressed the agency’s concern about Trump’s reported penchant for ripping some documents he read in the White House.
Other communications released Monday included correspondence between NARA and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which earlier this year asked David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, for details about 15 boxes of presidential records that it had recently recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
The communications were released in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
NARA said it was withholding the vast majority of the communications, including letters it sent to Trump’s lawyer, the Department of Justice, Congress and the White House, because they were exempt from disclosure under FOIA.
The release comes as the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of Trump for taking government documents with him when he left office.
That probe led to an FBI raid in early August of the Mar-a-Lago Club. Agents seized thousands of government records, a number of them highly classified. The raid occurred after the DOJ came to suspect that Trump had retained more official documents than the ones included in the 15 boxes given to NARA.
In all, NARA on Monday released 11 pages and withheld 298 pages of communications between the agency and representatives for Trump.
And it released just 54 pages of communications from NARA to what the agency called “external entities other than Trump representatives.” NARA is withholding 1,249 pages of communications in that category.
“NARA will continue to review additional responsive information in the coming months for possible release,” the agency said in a statement. “We are not able to comment more on today’s release because of pending litigation.”
In a May 2021 email that was released Monday, NARA General Counsel Gary Stern told lawyers for Trump about ongoing efforts to capture presidential records on social media accounts, but added, “There are also certain paper/textual records that we cannot account for.”
“We therefore need your immediate assistance to ensure that NARA receives all Presidential records as required by the Presidential Records…
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