The staff at the “overly political” National Archives refused to help President Trump pack up his office in the final days of his administration, according to Mr. Trump, and their absence caused him to unknowingly take classified material to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Mr. Trump’s attorneys made the charge in a letter to Congress that seeks a legislative remedy to end the Justice Department’s investigation into the former president’s possession of boxes of documents that the National Archives said belong to the agency and include some classified material.
Mr. Trump’s attorney in the case, Timothy B. Parlatore, wrote to Rep. Michael Turner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that the National Archives and Records Administration “unfortunately has become overtly political and declined to provide archival assistance to President Trump’s transition team.”
Had National Archives staff offered to help pack in Mr. Trump’s final days in office, Mr. Parlatore said, “he would have accepted the offer and there would have been no reason to transfer the documents to Mar-a-Lago.”
Mr. Parlatore wrote that the White House lacks standard procedures for handling classified documents and that a law is needed “to prevent the [Justice Department] from continuing to conduct ham-handed criminal investigations of matters that are inherently not criminal.”
The classified documents case is one of several investigations and lawsuits targeting the former president, who is seeking a second term in the White House.
The day after Mr. Trump launched his presidential campaign in November, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to take over the Justice Department’s classified documents investigation.
Mr. Smith is also investigating Mr. Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Liberal Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Mr. Trump in April on 34 felony counts over hush money he claims Mr. Trump paid to two pornography performers and a New York City doorman.
Mr. Trump is also facing civil lawsuits, one of them unfolding in New York City. E. Jean Carroll is seeking unspecified damages for battery and defamation based on her claim that he raped her in a department store decades ago.
The classified documents investigation may be the trickiest to prosecute. Three months after the FBI conducted an unprecedented raid of Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach home and seized boxes of documents that were taken from the White House, aides to President Biden announced that he, too, had classified documents in several unsecured locations that he had removed from Congress and the White House during his time as a senator and vice president.
Former Vice President Mike Pence also discovered classified documents in his home. Critics of the investigation into Mr. Trump’s possession of classified documents point to the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for diverting government emails, including classified material, to a private server.
Mr. Trump has insisted that, as president, he had the authority to declassify the documents. In the letter to Mr. Turner, his attorney does not question the former president’s assertion.
Instead, Mr. Parlatore described the hectic final days of the Trump administration in which aides swept documents into a box, supposedly without knowledge that classified material was included.
Mr. Parlatore and his co-counsel, James Trusty, reviewed boxes of material that Mr. Trump sent to the National Archives in January 2022, when he was initially working to cooperate on returning some of the items. The organization of the material, Mr. Trump’s attorneys say, “indicates that the White House staff simply swept all documents from the President’s desk and other areas into boxes, where they have resided ever since.”
Officials at the National Archives disputed the claims by Mr. Trump’s attorneys that they did not help the Trump administration, but it appears they did not assist in determining which material to pack at the end of the president’s term.
National Archives General Counsel Gary M. Stern said he told Congress in February that the organization provided only “logistical” support to Mr. Trump during his final days in office, similar to the assistance provided to three previous administrations.
A spokesperson added, “The packing of boxes and transfer of records from the White House to NARA at the end of each administration is always managed and controlled by White House and National Security Council officials. While NARA routinely provides assistance, the NARA staff work under the direction of the White House.”
Mr. Turner said in a statement to The Washington Times that the intelligence committee is examining how Congress can address the mishandling of classified documents.
“We had the archivists into our committee to testify, and they actually testified that every administration since Reagan has delivered to them boxes of a mixture of classified and declassified documents — unclassified documents — that were mixed together,” Mr. Turner said. “There’s been mishandling with a history that goes all the way back to the Reagan administration. We’re looking at how do we change the laws, how do we change the rules, and how do we address this so it doesn’t affect future administrations and it certainly shouldn’t affect these two.”
Mr. Trump may escape charges for removing the documents, but the special counsel could pursue a prosecution based on possible obstruction from Mr. Trump’s attempts to hold on to some of the material after the Justice Department subpoenaed him for it.
Former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, who has authored a book about the threat to civil liberties posed by the numerous investigations into the former president, said Mr. Trump’s defense should focus on the obstruction issue and not the original removal of the documents from the White House.
“He won’t be charged for mere possession of classified material. That’s not going to happen because that doesn’t distinguish the case from Biden, Pence and Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Dershowitz told The Times. “What he has to worry about is what happened afterward. His main concern should be obstruction of justice. And what happened when he left the White House has nothing to do with that.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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