WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON’s House Oversight Committee asked the National Archives to provide more information on former President Donald Trump’s handling White House records.
Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the panel’s chairwoman asked for a variety of documents including information about what was in 15 boxes taken from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Maloney also requested information about documents that Trump had destroyed and any correspondence between Maloney and the National Archives regarding the Presidential Records Act.
Maloney wrote Thursday that he was deeply concerned by the possibility that Trump had violated the law in his deliberate efforts to destroy and remove records that belonged to the American people.
She requested communications and documents on personal messaging accounts used for official business purposes and the destruction or failure to keep social media account records.
Maloney stated that the committee needed additional documents and information from NARA in order to examine the extent of the conduct and determine the best steps to preserve presidential records for the American people.
After the Archives stated that it needed to request Trump to return 15 boxes of records that he had wrongly taken from the White House, Maloney’s committee opened an investigation to investigate Trump’s handling of White House records.
This month, the records agency stated earlier that White House documents they had stored had been ripped up by the former president. Some of these documents were also taped back together by government officials. According to the President Records Act, all records of the president must be handed over to the Archives after their administrations end.
Trump responded by saying that the archives had “openly, willingly” organized the transfer of the boxes. He said they contained letters, records and newspapers as well as various articles.
He stated that the papers were handed out quickly and without conflict, and on a friendly basis. This is different to the fake news media accounts. It was actually routine and “no big deal”. However, I was told that I wasn’t under any obligation to provide this material due to various legal rulings over the years.
The Archives has provided hundreds pages from White House documents to House select committee to investigate Jan. 6’s attack on Capitol. This was a move Trump attempted unsuccessfully block at Supreme Court. NBC News reported previously that the records revealed a gap in Trump’s phone calls during the riot. The panel declined to comment on NBC News and Trump’s spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Maggie Haberman, a journalist at The New York Times, wrote that White House staff found paper clogging the toilet every so often and assumed Trump had flushed them — a claim Trump quickly to deny.
He stated in a statement that “another false story” about how he flushed papers down the White House toilet was fabricated by a reporter to gain publicity for a book.
