Former President Donald Trump’s alleged inappropriate management of White House documents while in office and after he fled to Florida has renewed questions about whether he broke federal law and, if so, whether he can be held responsible.
The Presidential Records Act, enacted in 1978, governs presidents’ record-keeping responsibilities. It requires that any memos, letters, emails, and other documents related to the president’s duties be preserved and turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of an administration.
However, the Archives recently revealed that Trump tore up documents while in office, some of which were pieced back together by White House records management officials, and brought more than a dozen boxes of items and letters with him to his Palm Beach, Florida, residence, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving office last year. The crates were collected by the Archives last month, according to the agency.
Anne Weismann, a lawyer who represented watchdog organizations that sued Trump over Presidential Papers Act breaches, told CBS News that the former president “certainly violated” the act in “many ways,” including shredding up records.
“The main difficulty is that there is no enforcement mechanism under the Presidential Record Act and no administrative enforcement provision,” she said.
Weismann, on the other hand, found two criminal statutes that Trump may have broken by deleting White House documents. According to the first statute, anybody who “willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States” risks a fine or up to a year in jail if convicted. If convicted, anybody who “willfully and illegally hides, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys… any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other object, filed or deposited… in any public office” faces a fine or up to three years in jail.
President Trump is leaving the White House for Texas.
President Donald Trump reads from a handwritten message to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the White House’s South Lawn on Wednesday, November 20, 2019.
On if Trump knowingly broke the law, Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, told CBS News, “You can’t plead ignorance.” “Ignoring the law is no justification, and in this situation, that would be a very difficult argument to make given the evidence that his chiefs of staff and [White House] counsel were ordering him to “stop doing this things.” Stop destroying these documents.’”
McClanahan was alluding to a story in the Washington Post that two of Trump’s former chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus and John Kelly, as well as former White House attorney Don McGahn, had cautioned him about the Presidential Records Act.
“Would a sensible president recognize that two chiefs of staff and one general counsel are most likely correct about the law? This would be a really straightforward case “He said.
Weismann said that if Trump is not held responsible for breaching federal regulations regulating record-keeping, subsequent presidents may be less motivated to comply.
“It obviously sends a message that these presidential record-keeping obligations aren’t very significant and can be ignored with impunity,” she added. “It would be a tremendous concern if such egregious offenses were unpunished.”
In addressing the historical importance of preserving presidential records, Weismann cited notes and doodles made by former President John F. Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. His secretary gathered the scribbles, which were kept and shown in a 2012 exhibition at the National Archives building to commemorate the moment when the world “teetered on the brink of thermonuclear war.”
“The entire objective of the Presidential Records Act was to say, this is our history, this belongs to the American people, and you, the president, are the custodian of your records while you’re in office,” she said. “You’re meant to develop them, protect them, and hand them on to the people when you leave office. We are losing a piece of our past.”
The National Archives confirmed last week that some of the documents it received from the Trump White House at the end of the administration had been torn up by the former president and had to be pieced back together by records management officials, while the White House had not reconstructed “a number” of ripped records it received.
On Monday, the agency also confirmed that it had collected 15 boxes containing presidential documents from Mar-a-Lago. According to the Washington Post, among the papers and things in the boxes were correspondence between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as a letter from former President Barack Obama to his successor.
On April 17, 2018, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe as they arrive for dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
According to the Archives, Trump’s team is “continue to hunt for more presidential papers that belong to” the agency.
CBS News revealed Wednesday that Archives officials have urged the Justice Department to examine Trump’s management of White House documents, but the recommendation does not imply a criminal probe or prosecution.
In addition to criminal penalties for breaching federal law, the Justice Department might file civil cases against Trump to collect presidential documents he may have taken with him after leaving the White House, according to McClanahan.
“It’s tunnel vision to concentrate just on the criminal side when there are so many other choices that might serve good public policy that the DOJ should have no qualms about pursuing,” he added. “If the individuals at the DOJ are honest, I don’t think this will go away. Something will happen, I think.”
Trump, he claims, is “playing the DOJ’s bluff” by relying on the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland to remain out of political conflicts.
“However, the issue is whether you charge a former president for committing a crime against the government and the people.” McClanahan explained.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee also initiated an inquiry into Trump’s record-keeping methods and sought information from the United States Archivist, David Ferriero, about the 15 boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.
“Former President Trump and his senior advisors must also be held accountable for any violations of the law,” Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, told Ferriero in a letter, adding that the panel needs the information to “examine the extent and impact” of Trump’s alleged Presidential Records Act violations.
According to the New York Times, the Archives discovered potential sensitive material in records Trump inappropriately withdrew from the White House at the conclusion of his first and only tenure. According to the Times, the revelation prompted the Archives to seek the Justice Agency for advice, and the department advised the Archives to have its inspector general investigate the situation.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and stated in a statement Thursday that the Archives “openly and gladly organized” the transportation of boxes containing letters, documents, newspapers, magazines, and articles that would be exhibited in the forthcoming Donald J. Trump Presidential Library.
“The documents were supplied readily, without dispute, and on a very amicable basis,” Trump remarked, contrasting his story with that of the Fake News Media. “Indeed, it was seen as regular and ‘no big deal.’ In reality, I was advised that I was under no duty to provide this evidence due to different judicial judgements made over the years.”
It’s unclear whose rulings the former president is referring to, but federal courts that considered cases involving suspected breaches of the Presidential Records Act when Trump was president have ruled the courts have no role in ensuring day-to-day compliance with the statute.