Just the News:
Just weeks after learning Joe Biden had improperly retained government documents, his administration began working with federal bureaucrats in spring and fall 2021 to increase pressure on Donald Trump for similar issues and eventually prompt a criminal prosecution of the 45th president, according to government memos newly unsealed by a federal judge.
The correspondence, released this week by U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon in Florida, provide the the most extensive accounting so far of how the Biden White House worked with federal bureaucrats to escalate pressure on Trump to return documents to the National Archives even as it slow-walked similar issues involving its own boss.
One email dated May 5, 2021, shows the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had already consulted the Biden White House about missing Trump records, more than a year before the public would learn that the former president president had kept some classified memos.
"I have had several conversations with [Person 40] since the end of the Trump Administration about various paper records that he believes were not transferred to us," NARA General Counsel Gary Stern wrote to his colleagues in one May email.
"Person 40" was not identified by name in the document but was listed as working for the Biden White House in the Records Management Office, according to a motion filed by Trump's lawyers in the case, which was previously redacted.
On August 30, 2021, NARA Archivist David Ferriero began to press Trump records representatives more explicitly about the documents, vowing to make referrals to "the Hill, DOJ, and the White House" if the documents had been destroyed or where not turned over soon.
"As you have seen in the press, the House has requested records," Ferriero writes in one email chain. "Our ability to respond requires access to the 24 boxes which have yet to be accounted for. At this point, I am assuming that they have been destroyed. In which case, I am obligated to report it to the Hill, DOJ, and the White House."
By September 2021, Stern had decided to draft a criminal referral against Trump to the Justice Department after documents were still not returned, according to an FBI interview summary with a NARA employee, identified as "Person 53" in the court documents.
"Stern approached [Per. 53] to formally draft a letter to DOJ raising concerns about PRA materials from the TRUMP administration which remained unaccounted for by NARA," the FBI memo stated.
In his interview with the FBI, Person 53 noted in his "years of experience," he "understood NARA never had to make such a referral to DOJ...to accomplish such an ask."
When he circulated the draft letter internally, Stern told colleagues he had been in contact with "DOJ counsel" about the matter and was continuing to communicate with the White House Counsel's Office, showing the Biden administration was in the loop about the efforts to repossess Trump's documents.
"In addition, [White House] Counsel is now also aware of the issue, and has asked that I keep them in the loop to the extent that we make any reference to the White House Office of Records Management," Stern wrote in the email.
While NARA and the White House were engaging DOJ on Trump, Biden aides were trying to figure out what to do with memos Biden kept at his University of Pennsylvania Biden Center office in Washington, some which turned out to be classified.
Hey guys, this all looks shady, but remember, they're Saving Democracy by weaponizing the government's intelligence and "law" enforcement arms against political opponents.