Monday, October 3, 2022

Very interesting

Former president Donald Trump asked one of his lawyers to tell the National Archives and Records Administration in early 2022 that Trump had returned all materials requested by the agency, but the lawyer declined because he was not sure the statement was true.

[...]

Alex Cannon, an attorney for Trump, had facilitated the January transfer of 15 boxes of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives, after archives officials agitated for more than a year to get “all original presidential records” back, which they are required by law to do.

[...]

Months earlier, in late 2021, when the archives was seeking the return of specific presidential documents, Cannon had told [a National Archives attorney] there could be more documents in Trump’s possession than what he was transmitting to the agency, but that he did not know one way or the other. Cannon also told Stern that he was not sure where all the documents were located, or what the documents were, according to people familiar with the conversations.

[...]

In addition, the former president told his aides that the documents in the boxes were “newspaper clippings” and not relevant to the archives, two of these people said, and complained that the agency charged with tracking government records was being persnickety about securing the materials from his Florida club.

  WaPo
This information would seem to make it certain that Trump himself asked the lawyer who DID sign such a false statement to do so. Criminal culpability in yet another facet of the crime, no?

But wait...that's not all...
Trump himself eventually packed the boxes that were returned in January, people familiar with the matter said. The former president seemed determined in February to declare that all material sought by the archives had been handed over.
The canaries are singing long and loud now that it looks like the DOJ is very serious about this crime and that there are some folks who will be going to jail.

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