The evidence is amply evident at this point: A special counsel inquiry led to the discovery of 37 charges against former President Donald Trump for deliberate retention of sensitive national security information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and perjury. Many others are left wondering, though: Was the president the target of a premeditated federal government campaign?
Trump’s attorneys suggested it as a possible defense in a letter to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in April, in which they claimed the National Archives and Records Administration was to blame. “Has become overtly political and declined to provide archival assistance to President Trump’s transition team” the first occurrence of its kind in forty years.
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NARA often supports presidents throughout their transition for a reason. Trump is “hardly the first president to mishandle classified information,” as The Associated Press highlighted in a January article about the Presidential Records Act, the Classified material Procedures Act, and other laws in question here.
For instance, even though President Jimmy Carter signed the Presidential Records Act, his administration was not covered by it. The AP said Carter. “Found classified materials at his home in Plains, Georgia, on at least one occasion and returned them to the National Archives, according to the same person who spoke of regular occurrences of mishandled documents. The person did not provide details on the timing of the discovery.
“An aide to the Carter Center provided no details when asked about that account of Carter discovering documents at his home after leaving office in 1981. It’s notable that Carter signed the Presidential Records Act in 1978 but it did not apply to records of his administration, taking effect years later when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated,” The AP’s narrative went on.
“Before Reagan, presidential records were generally considered the private property of the president individually. Nonetheless, Carter invited federal archivists to assist his White House in organizing his records in preparation for their eventual repository at his presidential library in Georgia.”
In a letter to the head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, former Trump attorney Timothy C. Parlatore highlighted worries about NARA’s collaboration with the departing administration. Parlatore emphasized the striking distinction between NARA’s approach of the Trump administration and that of every previous administration since Carter.
“When President Trump left office, there was little time to prepare for the outgoing transition from the presidency. Unlike his three predecessors, each of whom had over four years to prepare for their departure upon completion of their second term, President Trump had a much shorter time to wind up his administration,” Parlatore wrote.
“White House staffers and General Service Administration (‘GSA’) employees quickly packed everything into boxes and shipped them to Florida. This was a stark change from the standard preparations made by GSA and National Archives and Records Administration (‘NARA’) for prior administrations.”
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As stated by NARA in a press statement it published on October 11, 2022: “The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), in accordance with the Presidential Records Act, assumed physical and legal custody of the Presidential records from the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, when those Presidents left office. NARA securely moved these records to temporary facilities that NARA leased from the General Services Administration (GSA), near the locations of the future Presidential Libraries that former Presidents built for NARA. All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees.”
Why the shift? The former counsel for the previous president claims that playing politics:
“NARA unfortunately has become overtly political and declined to provide archival assistance to President Trump’s transition team. Interestingly, in its Press Statement NARA cites every recent President after Jimmy Carter as having received the same assistance with ‘archival and security standards,’” Parlatore wrote.
“Yet, President Carter, the last President before President Trump to not receive archival assistance found documents with classification markings in his home, which he returned to NARA (though apparently without an accompanying DOJ criminal probe).”
The New York Times claims that Parlatore left his position in May because of issues with one of Trump’s advisers, Boris Epshteyn.
The president’s former attorney, according to the newspaper “described how Mr. Epshteyn had hindered him and other lawyers from getting information to Mr. Trump, leaving the former president’s legal team at a disadvantage in dealing with the Justice Department, which is scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office and his efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election.”
The Times further stated that “Mr. Parlatore singled out Mr. Epshteyn as trying to keep the team from conducting additional searches of Mr. Trump’s properties after the F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, and discovered more than 100 additional classified documents.”
“As I said at the time, it had nothing to do with the case itself or the client,” Parlatore told the Times. “There are certain individuals that made defending the president much harder than it needed to be.”
Even Parlatore has held off on making any comments on his Twitter account, raising doubts about whether the dots can be linked. His most recent tweet was a repost of his interview from before the indictment on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on June 4.
However, once the allegations were revealed, Parlatore remarked in a CNN appearance“ the indictment has a lot in it, a lot of stuff I wasn’t aware of … specific allegations about moving boxes before the search … there are things in here that, if they have backup for, are certainly problematic.”
Additionally, it has been shown that disagreements exist outside of the conflict between Epsteyn and Parlatore inside the legal staff of the former president. Jim Trusty and John Rowley, the lawyers who defended Trump in the case involving the sensitive materials, quit their jobs in the wake of the 37-count charge.
One thing to think about is if NARA purposefully neglected to offer assistance during the secure transfer of presidential records, and whether the legal team sufficiently investigated the potential that a trap had been established.
No matter what, do not jump to the conclusion that this is a simple issue just because the media implies so. The likelihood that state agencies purposefully worked to undermine the former leader and opposition in every manner they could raises more urgent concerns than the indictment itself.
Let’s put it this way: It’s the type of proof that, when you read it: My editor really replied, “I hate to sound conspiratorial, but …,” after discovering this letter. However, it is not a conspiracy idea when coincidences multiply. Don’t allow anyone in the media convince you differently; this is a valid suspicion.
