There were people whose job it was to take the sometimes confetti-sized pieces of Donald Trump’s papers and puzzle them back together again. The former president made a habit of tearing up a paper as soon as he was finished with it, even though these records belong to history. So the National Archives and Records Administration had to travel to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve some of his presidential records. They were damaged, slipped into burn bags, and even sent to the Archives in little pieces. Many were lost. When the House January 6 Select Committee requested some of the presidential records, the National Archives brought back boxes of them from Mar-a-Lago. They contained letters from North Korea’s President Kim Jong Un and even President Barack Obama’s traditional transition letter to Trump, according to The Business Insider.
Presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky stressed the importance of preserving presidential records:
”The only way that a president can really be held accountable long term is to preserve a record about who said what, who did what, what policies were encouraged or adopted, and that is such an important part of the long-term scope of accountability — beyond just elections and campaigns.’
An attorney who worked in President Obama’s White House Counsel’s Office said:
‘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 for a year for these boxes to get there? And are there more boxes?’
It was ironic, given how hard Trump attacked Secretary Hillary Clinton over losing her emails. The Presidential Records Act called for the White House to:
‘[Preserve all] memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president’s official duties.’
The former president has had a habit of ripping up papers long before he took office. He refused to even allow a stenographer come into his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Poland as was traditional.
Three White Lions is the name of her political fictional book on Amazon’s Kindle-Vella. Gloria Christie writes for the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Gloria Christie Report is her newsletter for people on the go. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor in a briefer version of Bipartisan Report. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery (in process). Find her here on Facebook.
