In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law. Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.
Matt Zapotosky and colleagues at WP:
The National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to examine Donald Trump’s handling of White House records, sparking discussions among federal law enforcement officials about whether they should investigate the former president for a possible crime, according to two people familiar with the matter.Gustaf Kilander at The Independent:
The referral from the National Archives came amid recent revelations that officials recovered 15 boxes of materials from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that were not handed back in to the government as they should have been, and that Trump had turned over other White House records that had been torn up. Archives officials suspected Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents — including those that might be considered classified — and reached out to the Justice Department, the people familiar with the matter said.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive request. The two people said the discussions about the matter remained preliminary, and it was not yet clear whether the Justice Department would investigate. The department also might be interested in merely reclaiming classified materials. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
Ex-Trump White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman has claimed that former President Donald Trump would sometimes chew on torn-up documents.
Mr Trump “loved to tear up those documents,” Ms Manigault Newman told MSNBC after The Washington Post reported that the National Archives recovered 15 boxes of documents that Mr Trump had wrongly had shipped to his Florida residence.
The former adviser said that there are “certainly things that I’m sure cannot be accounted for because Donald Trump became very, very aware that a lot of these sensitive documents would at some point be made public”.
“After [Trump fixer] Michael Cohen left the office and I walked into the Oval, Donald, in my view, was chewing what he had just torn up,” she told MSNBC. “It was very bizarre because he is a germophobe he never puts paper in his mouth.”
beginning to think these attacks on Hillary Clinton weren't on the level pic.twitter.com/sv1GKcDoxt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 9, 2022
And when were they shredded? Apart from violating the Presidential Records Act*, the minute that the impeachment process got underway this would have been evidence and destruction is obstruction https://t.co/CrQf2H1eMt
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) February 6, 2022
