America First Legal Requests DOJ and National Archives Inspectors General Investigate the Unlawful Transfer of Former President Trump’s Records
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) sent a letter to the Offices of the Inspectors General at the Department of Justice and the National Archives and Records Administration requesting an investigation into the unlawful transfer of former President Trump’s records to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Last week, AFL detailed preliminary findings from its investigation into the circumstances of the Mar-a-Lago raid. We revealed evidence that the Biden White House was deeply involved with the matter, working with the Biden Department of Justice to use a “special access request” to take possession of former President Trump’s records–without the authority to do so. We also revealed that the National Archives misled Congress regarding their involvement in the matter. Read our explosive findings here.
Now, AFL is calling for the agencies’ Inspectors General to act because the Department of Justice, the White House, and the National Archives all knew or should have known that the special access statute authorized the Archives to grant the Biden Administration special access to President Trump’s records only if those records contained information needed “for the conduct of current [White House] business” and were “not otherwise available.”
The Acting Archivist said that at the request of the Biden White House, the National Archives provided the Biden Department of Justice with special access to the former President’s records “so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them.” There is no suggestion that the White House, the Department of Justice, or the Acting Archivist herself ever believed that the subject records contained information needed “for the conduct of [White House] business” as the law requires. Furthermore, when the Biden Department of Justice applied for a search warrant to raid Mar-a-Lago, it apparently concealed the fact that the records in question had been obtained through a “special access request”—a request that was, on its face, unlawful.
Statement from Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Vice President and General Counsel:
“Confronted with complex issues surrounding the existence of presidential privilege, the Biden Administration appears to have provided the DOJ and the FBI with a pretextual basis to obtain records to advance a desired political outcome. Based on the available evidence, NARA acted unlawfully in providing access to records to the Department of Justice to advance the Biden Administration’s agenda. The Inspectors General of DOJ and NARA must investigate this apparent, blatantly unlawful maneuver.“ said Gene Hamilton.
Read the letter here.
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