First Former President to Have Home Raided by FBI
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57Brave
Well-known member
Former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of documents appears to constitute “serious violations” of the Presidential Records Act, the House Oversight Committee said this week.
Luke Broadwater
By Luke Broadwater
Feb. 11, 2022
WASHINGTON — While he was president, Donald J. Trump was known to destroy, tear up, remove and even flush White House documents down the toilet. He often eschewed the White House switchboard, using his own cellphone or those of his aides to communicate.
The practices, which have drawn fresh attention as a result of the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, have raised the question of whether Mr. Trump’s norm-breaking behavior was also a crime.
The House Oversight Committee said this week that Mr. Trump’s handling of documents appeared to constitute “serious violations” of the Presidential Records Act, and announced an investigation of it.
The National Archives has consulted the Justice Department about Mr. Trump’s record preservation practices, after it discovered he had taken more than a dozen boxes of presidential files, including what it believes are classified documents, with him when he left office. The Washington Post reported that some of them were clearly marked “top secret.”
And his use of cellphones to conduct official business has led to large gaps in the official White House logs of his calls on Jan. 6, 2021, hampering investigators’ efforts to construct an accurate record of what he was doing during the riot. If he failed to preserve cellphone records and turn them over to the National Archives, that, too, could run afoul of the law.
Here’s what the Presidential Records Act is, and why Mr. Trump’s behavior may have violated it.
Presidents don’t own their documents.
In 1978, after Watergate, Congress enacted the Presidential Records Act, which made a president’s documents the property of the United States, not his personal property, and laid out a process for ensuring that Congress and the public could eventually gain access to them.
It was aimed at preventing future presidents from doing what Richard M. Nixon wanted to after he resigned in disgrace, when he planned to destroy recordings that documented steps he and others took in response to the Watergate investigation.
The law requires that a president’s records be turned over to the National Archives once he leaves office, and that they be made available to the public 12 years later — though certain entities, such as congressional investigators, can obtain them sooner.
The act excludes a president’s personal records — identified as those “of a purely private or nonpublic character” — from preservation requirements and grants a president a “high degree of discretion over what materials are to be preserved,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
It also provides a process for destroying records that typically includes seeking permission from the archivist of the United States, who may consult with Congress. There is no indication that Mr. Trump did so in the cases in question.
Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 Hearings
Making a case against Trump. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is laying out a comprehensive narrative of President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Here are the main themes that have emerged so far from eight public hearings:
An unsettling narrative. During the first hearing, the committee described in vivid detail what it characterized as an attempted coup orchestrated by the former president that culminated in the assault on the Capitol. At the heart of the gripping story were three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.
Creating election lies. In its second hearing, the panel showed how Mr. Trump ignored aides and advisers as he declared victory prematurely and relentlessly pressed claims of fraud he was told were wrong. “He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” William P. Barr, the former attorney general, said of Mr. Trump during a videotaped interview.
Pressuring Pence. Mr. Trump continued pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to overturn his loss even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out by the panel during the third hearing. The committee showed how Mr. Trump’s actions led his supporters to storm the Capitol, sending Mr. Pence fleeing for his life.
Fake elector plan. The committee used its fourth hearing to detail how Mr. Trump was personally involved in a scheme to put forward fake electors. The panel also presented fresh details on how the former president leaned on state officials to invalidate his defeat, opening them up to violent threats when they refused.
Strong arming the Justice Dept. During the fifth hearing, the panel explored Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging and relentless scheme to misuse the Justice Department to keep himself in power. The panel also presented evidence that at least half a dozen Republican members of Congress sought pre-emptive pardons.
The surprise hearing. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, delivered explosive testimony during the panel’s sixth session, saying that the president knew the crowd on Jan. 6 was armed, but wanted to loosen security. She also painted Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, as disengaged and unwilling to act as rioters approached the Capitol.
Planning a march. Mr. Trump planned to lead a march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 but wanted it to look spontaneous, the committee revealed during its seventh hearing. Representative Liz Cheney also said that Mr. Trump had reached out to a witness in the panel’s investigation, and that the committee had informed the Justice Department of the approach.
A “complete dereliction” of duty. In the final public hearing of the summer, the panel accused the former president of dereliction of duty for failing to act to stop the Capitol assault. The committee documented how, over 187 minutes, Mr. Trump had ignored pleas to call off the mob and then refused to say the election was over even a day after the attack.
Mr. Trump openly flouted the requirements.
The House Oversight Committee has asked the National Archives to provide information regarding its communications with Mr. Trump’s team about 15 boxes of White House records discovered at Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Palm Beach, Fla., after he left office.
Mr. Trump had been loath to return the materials despite repeated efforts by the National Archives to obtain them, and at one point, the agency threatened to send a letter to Congress or the Justice Department if he continued to withhold the boxes, according to a person familiar with private discussions.
“If former President Trump was intentionally destroying records or hiding records from the National Archives — where they are legally required to be kept — he must be held accountable,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of the oversight panel.
Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, said it appeared that Mr. Trump had violated the Presidential Records Act, given his penchant for ripping up documents.
“Any act of unauthorized destruction or unauthorized removal of records is contrary to law,” Mr. Aftergood said.
The question of Mr. Trump’s cellphone use is murkier. The act was written before the invention of email or cellphones, so it does not mention either. But given the purpose of the law — ensuring a complete record of presidential business — some experts believe Mr. Trump’s practices violated its spirit, if not its letter.
There are few consequences for Mr. Trump’s actions under the Presidential Records Act.
A flaw some experts see in the Presidential Records Act is its lack of a strong enforcement mechanism.
Under the law, the archivist has the “ultimate responsibility” for assuring the preservation and integrity of presidential records, Mr. Aftergood said.
“But the archives does not have its own police force, and doesn’t have much investigative capability to speak of,” he said. “They can ask questions, and they can write sternly worded letters. But the response depends on the White House or the president or the agency involved.”
Destroying documents could violate other laws.
Mr. Trump’s practice of ripping up documents could open him to additional criminal exposure, if the destruction of documents were part of an effort to impede an investigation.
“There could be liability under an obstruction statute, but the context and the facts would be critical there,” said David H. Laufman, a former Justice Department lawyer who oversaw the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
“If there’s some intent to destroy documents to preclude a government agency from carrying out its lawful function, there could be a conspiracy to defraud the United States,” Mr. Laufman said.
But he cautioned that the Justice Department is often reluctant to pursue prosecutions that have no historical precedent, and the agency has never charged a former president with the destruction or removal of records.
“In a case involving a former president, the burden should be particularly high for particular conduct that has not been the basis of prior enforcement action,” Mr. Laufman said.
Mr. Trump could face consequences for his handling of classified information.
Criminal codes, which carry jail time, prohibit conduct that “willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States” or “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroys” government documents.
Samuel R. Berger, a national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, pleaded guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor charge for removing classified material from a government archive.
Presidents have the power to decide what is classified and what is not — but only while they are in office.
“That could present a complicating factor for prosecutors in evaluating their likely success if they were to charge him or others with a crime,” Mr. Laufman said.
Luke Broadwater
By Luke Broadwater
Feb. 11, 2022
WASHINGTON — While he was president, Donald J. Trump was known to destroy, tear up, remove and even flush White House documents down the toilet. He often eschewed the White House switchboard, using his own cellphone or those of his aides to communicate.
The practices, which have drawn fresh attention as a result of the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, have raised the question of whether Mr. Trump’s norm-breaking behavior was also a crime.
The House Oversight Committee said this week that Mr. Trump’s handling of documents appeared to constitute “serious violations” of the Presidential Records Act, and announced an investigation of it.
The National Archives has consulted the Justice Department about Mr. Trump’s record preservation practices, after it discovered he had taken more than a dozen boxes of presidential files, including what it believes are classified documents, with him when he left office. The Washington Post reported that some of them were clearly marked “top secret.”
And his use of cellphones to conduct official business has led to large gaps in the official White House logs of his calls on Jan. 6, 2021, hampering investigators’ efforts to construct an accurate record of what he was doing during the riot. If he failed to preserve cellphone records and turn them over to the National Archives, that, too, could run afoul of the law.
Here’s what the Presidential Records Act is, and why Mr. Trump’s behavior may have violated it.
Presidents don’t own their documents.
In 1978, after Watergate, Congress enacted the Presidential Records Act, which made a president’s documents the property of the United States, not his personal property, and laid out a process for ensuring that Congress and the public could eventually gain access to them.
It was aimed at preventing future presidents from doing what Richard M. Nixon wanted to after he resigned in disgrace, when he planned to destroy recordings that documented steps he and others took in response to the Watergate investigation.
The law requires that a president’s records be turned over to the National Archives once he leaves office, and that they be made available to the public 12 years later — though certain entities, such as congressional investigators, can obtain them sooner.
The act excludes a president’s personal records — identified as those “of a purely private or nonpublic character” — from preservation requirements and grants a president a “high degree of discretion over what materials are to be preserved,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
It also provides a process for destroying records that typically includes seeking permission from the archivist of the United States, who may consult with Congress. There is no indication that Mr. Trump did so in the cases in question.
Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 Hearings
Making a case against Trump. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is laying out a comprehensive narrative of President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Here are the main themes that have emerged so far from eight public hearings:
An unsettling narrative. During the first hearing, the committee described in vivid detail what it characterized as an attempted coup orchestrated by the former president that culminated in the assault on the Capitol. At the heart of the gripping story were three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.
Creating election lies. In its second hearing, the panel showed how Mr. Trump ignored aides and advisers as he declared victory prematurely and relentlessly pressed claims of fraud he was told were wrong. “He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” William P. Barr, the former attorney general, said of Mr. Trump during a videotaped interview.
Pressuring Pence. Mr. Trump continued pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to overturn his loss even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out by the panel during the third hearing. The committee showed how Mr. Trump’s actions led his supporters to storm the Capitol, sending Mr. Pence fleeing for his life.
Fake elector plan. The committee used its fourth hearing to detail how Mr. Trump was personally involved in a scheme to put forward fake electors. The panel also presented fresh details on how the former president leaned on state officials to invalidate his defeat, opening them up to violent threats when they refused.
Strong arming the Justice Dept. During the fifth hearing, the panel explored Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging and relentless scheme to misuse the Justice Department to keep himself in power. The panel also presented evidence that at least half a dozen Republican members of Congress sought pre-emptive pardons.
The surprise hearing. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, delivered explosive testimony during the panel’s sixth session, saying that the president knew the crowd on Jan. 6 was armed, but wanted to loosen security. She also painted Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, as disengaged and unwilling to act as rioters approached the Capitol.
Planning a march. Mr. Trump planned to lead a march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 but wanted it to look spontaneous, the committee revealed during its seventh hearing. Representative Liz Cheney also said that Mr. Trump had reached out to a witness in the panel’s investigation, and that the committee had informed the Justice Department of the approach.
A “complete dereliction” of duty. In the final public hearing of the summer, the panel accused the former president of dereliction of duty for failing to act to stop the Capitol assault. The committee documented how, over 187 minutes, Mr. Trump had ignored pleas to call off the mob and then refused to say the election was over even a day after the attack.
Mr. Trump openly flouted the requirements.
The House Oversight Committee has asked the National Archives to provide information regarding its communications with Mr. Trump’s team about 15 boxes of White House records discovered at Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Palm Beach, Fla., after he left office.
Mr. Trump had been loath to return the materials despite repeated efforts by the National Archives to obtain them, and at one point, the agency threatened to send a letter to Congress or the Justice Department if he continued to withhold the boxes, according to a person familiar with private discussions.
“If former President Trump was intentionally destroying records or hiding records from the National Archives — where they are legally required to be kept — he must be held accountable,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of the oversight panel.
Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, said it appeared that Mr. Trump had violated the Presidential Records Act, given his penchant for ripping up documents.
“Any act of unauthorized destruction or unauthorized removal of records is contrary to law,” Mr. Aftergood said.
The question of Mr. Trump’s cellphone use is murkier. The act was written before the invention of email or cellphones, so it does not mention either. But given the purpose of the law — ensuring a complete record of presidential business — some experts believe Mr. Trump’s practices violated its spirit, if not its letter.
There are few consequences for Mr. Trump’s actions under the Presidential Records Act.
A flaw some experts see in the Presidential Records Act is its lack of a strong enforcement mechanism.
Under the law, the archivist has the “ultimate responsibility” for assuring the preservation and integrity of presidential records, Mr. Aftergood said.
“But the archives does not have its own police force, and doesn’t have much investigative capability to speak of,” he said. “They can ask questions, and they can write sternly worded letters. But the response depends on the White House or the president or the agency involved.”
Destroying documents could violate other laws.
Mr. Trump’s practice of ripping up documents could open him to additional criminal exposure, if the destruction of documents were part of an effort to impede an investigation.
“There could be liability under an obstruction statute, but the context and the facts would be critical there,” said David H. Laufman, a former Justice Department lawyer who oversaw the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
“If there’s some intent to destroy documents to preclude a government agency from carrying out its lawful function, there could be a conspiracy to defraud the United States,” Mr. Laufman said.
But he cautioned that the Justice Department is often reluctant to pursue prosecutions that have no historical precedent, and the agency has never charged a former president with the destruction or removal of records.
“In a case involving a former president, the burden should be particularly high for particular conduct that has not been the basis of prior enforcement action,” Mr. Laufman said.
Mr. Trump could face consequences for his handling of classified information.
Criminal codes, which carry jail time, prohibit conduct that “willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States” or “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroys” government documents.
Samuel R. Berger, a national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, pleaded guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor charge for removing classified material from a government archive.
Presidents have the power to decide what is classified and what is not — but only while they are in office.
“That could present a complicating factor for prosecutors in evaluating their likely success if they were to charge him or others with a crime,” Mr. Laufman said.
57Brave
Well-known member
Richard M. Nixon
@dick_nixon
·
1h
Yes. You don't do this because of a "transport error" or some kind
of debate over who owns what piece of paper. In this case a judge
doesn't sign off just because the government wants its property back.
Something else is going on.
Speculation on the 14-16 box of classified and Top Secret documents Trump assumed were his parting gift.
The National Archive earlier this year ran a Mar A Lago retrieval operation , remember
Apparently some were missing
@dick_nixon
·
1h
Yes. You don't do this because of a "transport error" or some kind
of debate over who owns what piece of paper. In this case a judge
doesn't sign off just because the government wants its property back.
Something else is going on.
Speculation on the 14-16 box of classified and Top Secret documents Trump assumed were his parting gift.
The National Archive earlier this year ran a Mar A Lago retrieval operation , remember
Apparently some were missing
57Brave
Well-known member
This might be a good time to explain why you Senators shot down affordable insulin
sturg33
I
Is it your contention that this is retaliation from an unrelated reckless spending bill?
sturg33
I
Is it your contention that there is no political motivations from the FBI since Trump took office, or is it that you simply support the motivations?
I'm curious if you're stupid or a tyrant. I know you're both in general but in this specific case it has to be one or the other
Little Eichmann enjoying the tyranny.
chop2chip
Well-known member
Don’t care for orange man at all. Never voted for him the first two times. Wouldn’t vote for him in 2024.
But interested to see how everyone reacts when this inevitably results in no actual charges being filed. Why should I expect anything different after 6+ years of the witch hunt.
Russian servers, tax returns, golden showers, Mueller, Comey, Stormy Daniels…
I have zero trust this is law and order and not more partisan bull ****. I have zero trust the national media will give fair and accurate coverage. I have zero trust in anyone who does trust in the previous two sentences.
But interested to see how everyone reacts when this inevitably results in no actual charges being filed. Why should I expect anything different after 6+ years of the witch hunt.
Russian servers, tax returns, golden showers, Mueller, Comey, Stormy Daniels…
I have zero trust this is law and order and not more partisan bull ****. I have zero trust the national media will give fair and accurate coverage. I have zero trust in anyone who does trust in the previous two sentences.
chop2chip
Well-known member
Kudos on the timing of this raid though! Three months before mid-terms… what a coincidence!!
If the Democrats are really lucky, maybe this will lead to Trump announcing he’s running in 2024. Is this step 2 in their plan after funding MAGA candidates across the country?
If the Democrats are really lucky, maybe this will lead to Trump announcing he’s running in 2024. Is this step 2 in their plan after funding MAGA candidates across the country?
these scenarios show you how stupid the left is. They should want Trump to run but instead thier thinking of every scheme to make sure he isn’t allowed to run.
I agree.