National Archives letter reveals scope of classified documents retained by Trump
Ex-US president held on to material relating to some of the country’s most sensitive secrets and may have obstructed an investigation into the matter, newly leaked letter indicates
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After leaving the White House in January 2021, former US president Donald Trump took with him hundreds of pages of highly classified documents relating to issues of national security, which he kept at his private club in Florida, a letter sent by the National Archives to Trump’s lawyers earlier this year has shown.
The letter, cited by The New York Times in a Tuesday report, offered a first indication of the scope and sensitivity of the files retained by the former president without authorization after leaving office.
It confirmed that Trump had kept documents relating to Special Access Programs, considered among the most sensitive secrets held by the US government, which could potentially implicate him in a crime, according to the report.
These programs usually relate to extremely sensitive operations abroad or restricted technologies and special capabilities held by the US.
The letter, addressed to Trump’s lawyer Evan Corcoran by acting US archivist Debra Steidel Wall, was disclosed Monday night by John Solomon, a Trump liaison to the archives.
Dated May 10, it also explained the decision of the Justice Department to open a national security investigation into Trump’s holding of government secrets that resulted in FBI agents raiding his Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.
It described the “ongoing communications” between archives officials and Trump’s lawyers about missing presidential records, resulting in Trump returning 15 boxes of highly classified information and Special Access Programs documents in January.
The boxes contained over 150 classified documents, a number so large it helped trigger the criminal investigation.
Debra Steidel Wall, #NationalArchives Director is defending democracy! She may have nailed #tfg! This is the face of a true #patriot! pic.twitter.com/XjlcdwXdie
— JustaMess (@MessJusta) August 24, 2022
But the letter also indicated that Trump’s lawyers had managed to further delay the process of assessing the damage caused by the removal of the classified materials from the White House by asking for more time to assess whether the documents were protected by executive privilege, an assertion that was eventually rejected by Hall, according to the letter.
It therefore undermines many of the claims currently voiced by Trump’s legal team, such as that federal officials could have asked for and would have received the documents at any time, and that the documents are protected by executive order, a claim that was already rejected by the government.
It could also be seen as painting a different picture than that portrayed by Trump’s lawyers about the former president’s apparent willingness to cooperate with the archives and the Justice Department on the issue.
In fact, it may indicate that Trump had intentionally obstructed the investigation into the documents.
On Monday, Trump’s lawyers asked a federal judge to halt the FBI’s review of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago until a neutral special master could be appointed to inspect the records.
The request was included in a federal lawsuit, the first filing by Trump’s legal team in the two weeks since the search, that takes broad aim at the FBI investigation into the discovery of the classified records.
The lawsuit casts the August 8 search, in which the FBI said it recovered 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, as a “shockingly aggressive move.” It also attacks the warrant as overly broad, contends that Trump is entitled to a more detailed description of the records seized, and argues that the FBI and Justice Department have long treated him “unfairly.”
“Law enforcement is a shield that protects America. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” the lawyers wrote Monday. “Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid” at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump himself has argued that “ALL documents have been previously declassified” — though he has not produced evidence to support that claim — and described the records as having been “illegally seized from my home.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.