Trump Staffers Not Returning White House Records, National Archives Says
TEHRAN(Tasnim) - Former US President Donald Trump’s administration has not turned over all presidential records and the National Archives will consult with the Justice Department on whether to move to get them back, the agency has told the Congress.
A congressional panel on September 13 sought an urgent review by the National Archives and Records Administration after agency staff members acknowledged that they did not know if all presidential records from Trump’s White House had been turned over, Reuters reported.
“While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should,“ acting Archivist Debra Wall said in a letter Friday to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
The Archives knows some White House staffers conducted official business on personal electronic messaging accounts that were not copied or forwarded to their official accounts, in violation of the Presidential Records Act, Wall said.
“NARA has been able to obtain such records from a number of former officials and will continue to pursue the return of similar types of presidential records from former officials,“ Wall said in the letter, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
She said the Archives, the federal agency charged with preserving government records, would consult with the Department of Justice on “whether to initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed.”
Trump is facing a criminal investigation by the Justice Department for retaining government records - some marked as highly classified, including “top secret” - at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in January 2021.
The FBI seized more than 11,000 records, including about 100 documents marked as classified, in a court-approved August 8 search at Mar-a-Lago.
