Analysis: Trump is the most egregious violator of the Presidential Records Act in the law’s 44 years of existence, historians say.
At the end of the president’s administration, officials must hand over official documents — typically amounting to tens of thousands of pages — and tapes to the federal government. That can include national security briefs, handwritten notes, daily presidential logs and calendars, emails and faxes, and phone logs. The law also requires that presidents and their staffers take “every practical step” to preserve all this.
In most White Houses, aides track where the president is and what he’s doing at all times. On Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot,mentions such details as: “11:08 a.m.: The president went to the Oval Office. 12:00 p.m.: The president made remarks at ‘Save America Rally.’ 1:19 p.m.: The President returned to the South Grounds of the White House and went to the Oval Office.
What Trump did, though, is on a whole other level. According to Post reporting, he tore up hundreds of documents — perhaps more — indiscriminately. His aides used burn bags to destroy documents rather than hand them over. There is a gap of more than seven hours on in his phone logs on one of the most crucial days of his presidency, the day of the Jan. 6 insurrection — even as journalists have reported he made or took multiple calls to lawmakers who were trapped in the Capitol during the riot.
The Jan. 6 congressional committee is looking at whether Trump covered up his actions during the riot, potentially by using burner phones, aides’ phones or other channels,“The biggest takeaway I have from that behavior is it reflects a conviction that he was above the law,” presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky told my colleagues earlier this year. “He did not see himself bound by those things.
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