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Administrator- Joined
- May 11, 2013
- Posts
- 24,890
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- 13,614
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- 2,755
- Location
- Morganton, N.C.
- Website
- conversations-ii.freeforums.net
(The Guardian) Trump kept hundreds of classified documents after leaving White House: report
Despite rules requiring outgoing presidents to turn their materials over to the National Archives, the US government has retrieved more than 300 classified documents from Donald Trump since he left office, beginning with an initial 150 recovered in January, The New York Times reports.
The initial release of documents alarmed the justice department, which feared that the former president may have retained secrets that should have been sent to the government after his departure from the White House. It also laid the groundwork for the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, where they turned up even more sensitive materials.
Since he left the White House, the report says government record keepers have been concerned about the whereabouts of the several documents from the Trump administration, including a note Barack Obama left his successor, and letters from North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un. Those concerns eventually grew into the national security investigation that led to the FBI’s search.
Here’s more from Times’ report: The extent to which such a large number of highly sensitive documents remained at Mar-a-Lago for months, even as the department sought the return of all material that should have been left in government custody when Mr. Trump left office, suggested to officials that the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling it, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both.
The specific nature of the sensitive material that Mr. Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Mr. Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. spanning a variety of topics of national security interest, a person briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.
The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.
Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June. At the conclusion of the search this month, officials left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.
Despite rules requiring outgoing presidents to turn their materials over to the National Archives, the US government has retrieved more than 300 classified documents from Donald Trump since he left office, beginning with an initial 150 recovered in January, The New York Times reports.
The initial release of documents alarmed the justice department, which feared that the former president may have retained secrets that should have been sent to the government after his departure from the White House. It also laid the groundwork for the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, where they turned up even more sensitive materials.
Since he left the White House, the report says government record keepers have been concerned about the whereabouts of the several documents from the Trump administration, including a note Barack Obama left his successor, and letters from North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un. Those concerns eventually grew into the national security investigation that led to the FBI’s search.
Here’s more from Times’ report: The extent to which such a large number of highly sensitive documents remained at Mar-a-Lago for months, even as the department sought the return of all material that should have been left in government custody when Mr. Trump left office, suggested to officials that the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling it, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both.
The specific nature of the sensitive material that Mr. Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Mr. Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. spanning a variety of topics of national security interest, a person briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.
The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.
Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June. At the conclusion of the search this month, officials left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.
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