U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has confirmed that the Justice Department is taking a look at the handling of records associated with the presidential administration of Donald Trump. It was in a recent letter to leaders of the House Oversight Committee that National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) head David S. Ferriero wrote that “[because] NARA identified classified information in the boxes [recovered from Mar-a-Lago], NARA staff has been in communication with the Department of Justice.” (The Archives recently recovered 15 boxes of records that had been improperly taken to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after his time in office ended.) Now, Garland says in reference to this matter that the Justice Department “will do what we always do under these circumstances: look at the facts of the law and take it from there.”
A federal law known as the Presidential Records Act requires the preservation and eventual delivery to the National Archives of a whole host of records from presidential administrations — and it would appear that mishandling classified information is a whole additional issue on top of that. Former Watergate special prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks said in a recent appearance on MSNBC that potential consequences for this ordeal could include Trump being barred from ever holding public office again. Trump has also been on the rhetorical hook for destroying records — or trying to, at least — throughout his time in office. Some items from the Trump era that were obtained by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot had been torn up by the now former president, marking yet another example of the ex-commander-in-chief’s flagrant disregard for the law, as though it simply doesn’t apply to him.
New: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on SCOTUS declining to hear Trump Jan. 6 case: “Supreme Court made resoundingly clear that no one is above the law—not even a former president who incited a deadly insurrection.”
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) February 22, 2022
Federal authorities are also looking into a multi-state scheme to essentially falsify electoral votes for Trump in states that Biden won. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco confirmed, regarding referrals from state authorities about the matter, that the Justice Department “received those referrals,” adding: “Our prosecutors are looking at those and I can’t say anything more on ongoing investigations.” Basically, that effort involved drawing up false claims that certain Trump supporters were the legitimate electoral college members from seven states where Biden was actually victorious, with documentation of these false claims sent to federal authorities. Excuses for the endeavor included the notion that the faked electoral votes would have helped maintain the viability of legal challenges to the presidential election outcome, but by the time that legitimate members of the electoral college cast their votes, it was clear that there was no real-world evidence that the outcome could be legitimately changed.
The Supreme Court has rejected, with no noted dissents, former President Trump’s appeal to stop the National Archives from handing over his WH records to the @January6thCmte, per @PeteWilliamsNBC.
End of the line for Mr. Trump’s legal fight on this front
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) February 22, 2022
Felonies could be among the criminal offenses perpetrated by those involved in the elector scheme. There has also been reporting about deliberations by the House panel investigating the riot over potentially sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department for Trump and others. These referrals wouldn’t be legally binding on the department, but in their pushes for prosecutors to pursue certain charges, they’d no doubt come with a lot of evidence.
NBC's Pete Williams: The Supreme Court has formally rejected Trump's appeal to stop the National Archives from handing over documents to the Jan. 6 Committee.
In the final chapter, Trump's appeal was rejected with no noted dissents. @NBCNews— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 22, 2022
