Former President Trump Faces Ongoing Investigation Amidst Claims Certain Documents are Still Missing
Former President Trump faces charges related to alleged mishandling of government documents. Source for photo: The Hilltop
After his eventful exit from office, former President Donald Trump stayed quite busy in the news. On August 8th, 2022, the FBI launched a search into Mar-a-lago, the current residence of the former President and his family. The search was launched in an effort to aid an ongoing criminal investigation by the Justice Department into Trump and his administration regarding their alleged mishandling of government documents. In total, the FBI recovered 11,282 federal documents, including 103 that were marked as confidential or classified. They also have obtained 48 folders which, at the time, were suspected to contain classified information.
Weeks after the raids, a congressional panel urged the National Archives to ensure that all of the missing documents had been found, as they were unsure if all of them had been reacquired after the raid. On September 30th, Debra Steidel Wall, the acting National Archivist, released a statement noting that not all of the missing documents had been secured. As part of the ongoing investigation, investigators discovered that former White House staff members were transmitting presidential documents through personal forms of communication, rather than through their official ones. This aspect violates the Presidential Records Act, an act designed to protect government records, which made it difficult for the National Archives to track down the rest of the missing documents. Recently, CNN reported that the documents in question contain the letter correspondences between the former President and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un from May 2021, along with two-dozen other boxes of Presidential records.
In light of this alarming news, numerous media outlets such as the New York Times and CNN released copious amounts of articles relating to what the missing documents might contain and where they might be. As a result, many Americans are wondering exactly where these documents may have ended up. It is possible they are either in the hands of the former President and his staff, or even unknown third parties.. No precedent has been set, be it legal or political, for how this case will play out. Previous presidents have been accused of various wrongdoings while in office, such as the Watergate scandal during the Nixon Presidency, or the Oval Office scandal during Clinton Presidency, but never before has there been an information scandal of this scale regarding a former president. Scandals such as Watergate, the Teapot Dome, Oval Office, and Iran-Contra affair all happened while their respective presidents were still in office, however this scandal moves into uncharted territory as Trump is no longer in office yet still holds federal information.
Trump and his team have been quick to comment on the ongoing investigation and the FBI search of his property, and they have been disparaging regarding the investigations. A statement from his legal team reads “This investigation of the 45th President of the United States is both unprecedented and misguided ... In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records.”
While the sentiments that the former President and his legal team share are understandable, due to their goal to get the former president aquitted, they are not in accordance with federal law. As previously mentioned, the Presidential Records Act, while allowing the former President to access and limit access to documents possessed by the United States, does not allow him the right to possess those documents after his term. Trump made various claims in defense of this violation of United States law, stating that the FBI planted the documents at his residence and that the classified documents were declassified by him upon his departure from office. No one, however, substantiated any of the claims he made.
The Trump legal team also asked for the appointment of a special master, or someone to act as an arbiter and review the records that were seized. On September 12, Raymond Drearie, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed to be the special master in the case after the government and Trump’s legal team agreed upon a selection. As a strategic move from the Trump team, the special master has the ability to remove documents from the case that the former president has legal claim to under the Presidential Records Act. Also, the review process will take quite some time and likely stall the investigation, giving Trump’s camp more time to mount a defense.
While the investigation into this mishandling of government information is ongoing and all the facts have yet to be released, it will be riveting to see what legal defense Trump and his team come up with. The implications from a long and arduous trial process could hurt the former President as he intends to run again for a second term in the 2024 Republican primaries and possibly the 2024 general election. With the 2022 midterm elections set to take place in November, many presidential candidates will look to start forming their campaign platforms upon looking at the results of the election. In fact, President Biden recently hinted at the possibility that he may soon be looking into the possibility of running for reelection. While other candidates are beginning to form the basis of their campaigns, former President Trump will be stuck fighting the federal investigation regarding this scandal. Such fights may deter his campaign efforts as he spends his time and money trying to stay eligible to run for office a second time.