Headline Roundup • February 18th, 2022
Documents Taken by Trump Contained Classified Information, National Archives Says
Donald Trump,National Archives,House Oversight Committee,US House,US Congress,Mar-A-Lago,White House,Trump Administration,Classified Information
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Some of the White House documents taken to Mar-a-Lago by former President Donald Trump contained “classified national security information,” the National Archives said in a Friday letter to the House Oversight Committee.
The presence of classified information further opened the possibility that Trump violated federal record-keeping laws. The letter also confirmed earlier reporting on the National Archives’ coordination with the Justice Department on the matter. The National Archives previously confirmed the documents’ existence on Feb. 7, saying it had arranged to take possession of the documents in mid-January after conversations with Trump’s representatives in 2021. According to a Washington Post (Lean Left) report, some of the documents included letters from former President Barack Obama and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
While several left-rated outlets featured the story at the top of their homepages, right-rated outlets were less likely to feature the story prominently. Some coverage in left-rated outlets said Trump had “improperly” taken the documents.
Featured Coverage of this Story
Alex Brandon/AP
The US National Archives confirmed on Friday that officials found classified materials in boxes of documents Donald Trump improperly removed from the White House – and that they had alerted the Department of Justice (DoJ).
The disclosure is expected to escalate an investigation by the House oversight committee into whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by removing and destroying White House documents.
In a letter to the committee, David Ferriero, of the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara), said it had “identified items marked as classified national security information in the boxes”.
Presidential record keepers confirmed Friday that there were classified national security documents among the 15 boxes recently retrieved from Mar-a-Lago as former President Trump has been directed to release his communications to the Jan. 6 House committee.
The statement from the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) comes as the House Oversight Committee last week launched a probe into Trump’s handling of presidential records — and it also confirms the agency has contacted the Justice Department.
“NARA has identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes,” National Archivist David Ferriero...
The National Archives and Records Administration says presidential records recently retrieved from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida were marked as classified national security information.
David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, said in a letter to Congress on Friday that because the information marked as classified was removed from the White House, the Justice Department has been notified.
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