![]() Although the PRA declares that “he United States shall receive and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records,” it does not provide all executive officials with unfettered access to such records. This notice was not simply a courtesy, but a formal step required by the Presidential Records Act (PRA). On April 12, 2022, NARA provided Trump notice that it planned to provide access to the FBI, and that it could do so just a few days later. The White House counsel, acting on behalf of President Joe Biden, then made a formal request that NARA allow the FBI to inspect the contents of the boxes. Based on those classification levels, NARA informed the Department of Justice, which determined that it should examine them for two reasons: (1) to evaluate whether they contained evidence of criminal activity, and (2) to assess potential damage to national security stemming from how the documents were stored at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence before being returned to Washington. Some of the documents in the 15 missing boxes were marked as Top Secret and included Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Programs-which are among the nation’s most closely guarded secrets. The Presidential Records Act and Timeline of Events Below I discuss the statutory and constitutional framework for assessing Trump’s dispute with NARA regarding FBI access to the 15 boxes and explain why from a legal and constitutional standpoint NARA was not only justified in denying Trump’s assertion of executive privilege. But NARA rejected the executive privilege argument and shared the documents with the FBI. The May letter establishes a timeline showing how Trump and NARA have tussled over the documents and reveals the former president raised the possibility that executive privilege would block their review by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It’s an exchange that may now also be relevant to Trump’s asking a federal district court in Florida to appoint a Special Master to filter out documents subject to “executive privilege.” In January 2022, Trump transferred 15 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago to NARA. According to a NARA May 2022 letter and more recent reporting, the agency went back and forth with Trump’s lawyers about “missing Presidential records” throughout 2021 and well into 2022. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and former President Donald Trump are locked in a long running dispute over records taken from the White House in January 2021. ![]()
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