In January, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved multiple boxes from the White House that were improperly stored by President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence, The Washington Post reports.
- The boxes contained documents and other items that should have been turned over to the agency.
- Not turning them in would be a violation of the Presidential Records Act that requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails faxes and any other written communication related to the president’s duties, the act states.
- The National Archives said that the documents “included paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump,” per The Washington Post.
- Documents in the boxes also included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which Trump once referred to as “love letter,” and President Barack Obama.
The agency has struggled to preserve records in the Trump era, which has proved to be the most challenging since former President Richard Nixon made it a mission to block disclosure of official records such as the White House tapes, according to ABC News.
This type of transfer of documents to Mar-a-Lago was “out of the ordinary ... NARA has never had that kind of volume transfer after the fact like this,” according to the Post.
The National Archives released records from Trump’s White House to the House Jan. 6 Select Committee. The documents, which were found torn up and were taped back together, per The Hill.