National Archives Alleges Trump Administration Records Are Partly Missing

Mimi Nguyen LyOctober 1, 2022

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has alleged that some records from the White House when former President Donald Trump was in office are still missing.

In a letter to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote: “While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should.”

NARA doesn’t have records of official business conducted by some White House staff members who were using “non-official electronic messaging accounts,” Wall wrote in the Sept. 30 letter (pdf).

While the records “were not copied or forwarded into their official electronic messaging accounts, as required by section 2209 of the [Presidential Records Act],” NARA has been able to obtain the records from “a number of former officials,” and “will continue to pursue the return of similar types of Presidential records from former officials,” she added.

The Presidential Records Act stipulates that each administration must properly preserve all presidential records and transfer a complete set of records to NARA when the administration ends.

Wall told Maloney in the letter that if needed, NARA would consult with the Department of Justice on whether to “initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed.” She noted that in August 2022, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against former Trump adviser Peter Navarro to recover official email records from Navarro’s personal email account.

The letter from Wall is a response to a request from Maloney on Sept. 13 asking for an “urgent review” of “whether presidential records remain unaccounted for and potentially in the possession of the former president.”

In a statement to multiple media outlets, Maloney said she will continue her efforts “to ensure that all presidential records from the Trump White House are returned