The National Archives informed Congress it has not yet received all the presidential records Trump White House officials should have turned over. The agency added it would consult with the Department of Justice to seek legal actions to retrieve them.
“While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have
custody of everything we should,” Debra Wall, the acting U.S. archivist, wrote on Friday in a letter to the House Oversight Committee.
The memo is a response to a request from the committee asking the National Archives to identify any presidential records that were not transferred, as required by law.
Former President Donald Trump is being investigated by the Department of Justice since earlier this year over his handling of presidential records. In August, the FBI searched Trump’s estate in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, and found more than 11,000 documents, including over 300 top secret files.
The archives identified in February that some former White House members have not forwarded government-related messages exchanged using their personal accounts to the official ones. Wall said the agency has been able to retrieve some of these files and it would consult legal options.
“As appropriate, NARA would consult with the Department of Justice on whether to initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed”, the letter reads.
In a statement, the Oversight Committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) criticized Trump and his staff members.
“Former President Trump and his senior staff have shown an utter disregard for the rule of law and our national security by failing to return presidential records as the law requires,” Maloney wrote.
