Photo: Mark Wilson / Getty Images
The US National Archives and Records Administration asked the Department of Justice to investigate former President Donald Trump for the way official White House documents were handled during his tenure, according to several media outlets citing official sources.
These sources explained that the Department of Justice is still analyzing the petition, so it has not made a decision on the matter.
The National Archives made this request after recovering in January 15 boxes with documents and other White House items, including letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which were at Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, a part of the documents of the government of Donald Trump that the committee of the House of Representatives that investigates the assault on the Capitol has requested.
When they leave power, American presidents must deliver to the National Archives all letters, notes , emails and other written communications that are related to their official functions in the Presidency, for their conservation.
The fact that Trump took those boxes to Florida raises questions about whether he may have violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires preservation of those documents, although the capacity of the National Archives to penalize those who violate the legislation is very limited.
According to what Trump advisers explained to The Washington Post on condition of anonymity, the boxes contained gifts, letters from world leaders and other correspondence, but denied that the former president acted with malice.
Among the documents were correspondence sent to him by the North Korean leader during the p bilateral thaw process, and which Trump once described as “love letters”; as well as a letter left in the Oval Office by his predecessor, Barack Obama (2009-2017).
Take those boxes has not been the only problem that Trump has posed to the National Archives: the former president often tore up official documents, which were sent to that US agency still in pieces or pasted, according to the Post.
Some of those torn and then cellophaneed documents are among those received last month by the committee on the Lower House that investigates the assault on the Capitol in January 2021, according to the newspaper.
The law contemplates penalties of up to three years in prison for those who act maliciously when hiding or destroying documents, but proving that is difficult and the experts consulted by the Post see it as very unlikely that there will be any nces of what happened for Trump.
With information from EFE
It may interest you:
The National Archives recovered 15 boxes of documents from the Trump presidency at Mar-a-Lago
Mike Pence denies Donald Trump: “I had no right to annul the elections”
Trump criticizes Mike Pence and calls the Republican leader of the Senate an “old crow”