[csusbpeace] National Archives Sought Trump's Letters With Kim Jong Un, Obama In May 2021
- From: "raccoon" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ("bigraccoon1")
- To: "CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2022 06:42:26 -0700
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/national-archives-trump-administration-records_n_633bf139e4b04cf8f366333d
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/national-archives-trump-administration-records_n_633bf139e4b04cf8f366333d>
National Archives Sought Trump's Letters With Kim Jong Un, Obama In May 2021
The record-keeping agency said some Trump administration items were still
missing, even after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
Oct 4, 2022
The National Archives wrote to lawyers representing former President Donald
Trump <https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/donald-trump> four months after he
left office requesting missing records from his administration, including
correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The email was made public on Monday in response to 50 Freedom of Information
Act requests <https://www.archives.gov/foia/15boxes> about the 15 boxes of
material the agency recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this
year.
In the email, Gary M. Stern, general counsel of the National Archives and
Records Administration, wrote the agency had yet to receive “certain
paper/textual records” it was required to keep under the Presidential Records
Act. Among the missing records were Trump’s original communications with the
North Korean leader.
“It is our understanding that in January 2021, just prior to the end of the
Administration, the originals were put in a binder for the President, but
were never returned to the Office of Records Management for transfer to
NARA,” Stern wrote in an email dated May 6, 2021
<https://www.archives.gov/files/foia/category-1.pdf>.
The archives also was missing a letter that former President Barack Obama
<https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/barack-obama> left for Trump on his
first day in office, Stern wrote. He added that about 12 boxes of
presidential records stored in the White House residence during Trump’s term
had not been turned over to the archives, even though White House legal
counsel Pat Cipollone said they should be.
“We know things were very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a
one-term transition,” Stern wrote. “But it is absolutely necessary that we
obtain and account for all original Presidential records.”
Stern’s letter was addressed to Trump lawyers Patrick Philbin, Mike Purpura
and Scott Gas.
The National Archives on Friday informed the House Committee on Oversight and
Reform it was still missing certain Trump administration records, noting that
many Trump underlings used private email accounts for government business.
“While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know
that we do not have custody of everything we should,” Debra Steidel Wall, the
acting U.S. archivist, wrote to the committee, according to The Associated
Press.
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/national-archives-trump-staf_n_6338ed28e4b04cf8f3636cef>
Steidel Wall said the agency would contact the Department of Justice to
recover the “records unlawfully removed,” AP reported. The Justice Department
is conducting a criminal investigation into Trump’s removal of records,
including those classified with the highest security designations, and his
failure to return them.
Earlier this year, the National Archives recovered
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/national-archives-trump-classified-records_n_620ff839e4b06212585d27c3>
15 boxes of records taken to Trump’s Florida estate, including “items marked
as classified national security information.” Those boxes reportedly
contained the Kim and Obama letters the agency sought in May 2021.
The Washington Post on Monday reported
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/03/trump-alex-cannon-documents/>
Trump directed one of his lawyers, Alex Cannon, to tell the National
Archives these boxes contained all the government records that had been taken
from his time in office, but Cannon refused because he wasn’t sure the
statement was true.
In the end, the 15 boxes were not the extent of what Trump hoarded in
Florida. Trump’s team turned over a further set of documents in June
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/politics/trump-alex-cannon-archives.html>
to the Justice Department, and an FBI
<https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/fbi> search of Mar-a-Lago in August,
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fbi-raids-mar-a-lago-trump_n_62f19592e4b0acf9d000e5dc>
found about 100 classified documents and additional materials that were
still kept there.
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