WASHINGTON — As president, Donald Trump never liked to leave a paper trail. He avoided email, admonished aides to stop taking notes during meetings and ripped up documents when he was finished with them.
But Trump was unwilling to part with some of his administration’s records when he left the White House last year, whisking them away to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Although more than a dozen boxes have since been returned to the government, the discovery alarmed archivists and historians who were already skeptical of Trump’s commitment to transparency.
For them, the episode is not just a story about a presidential packrat or a sloppy filing system, but an example of how fragments of American history are at risk of being lost. Destroying or concealing documents, they said, could prevent future generations from understanding how important decisions were made.
“My first reaction was words you’re probably not allowed to print,” said Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian. Academics rely on official records to paint a complete picture of every administration, and she said revelations about the documents at Mar-a-Lago were a reminder of “how fragile that process can be if people do not follow the rules.”
The Presidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of White House documents, was passed in 1978 after the Watergate scandal, when a collection of secret tapes played a defining role. Although President Richard Nixon had considered destroying them, the tapes were ultimately discovered by investigators, revealing that Nixon tried to cover up the bungled burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters. He chose to resign rather than face impeachment and removal from office.
It can be hard to believe that there’s anything left to learn about Trump’s presidency, which has already been the subject of around-the-clock media coverage and a small library’s worth of books. But official records can still prove insightful once they become public after being processed by the National Archives, which can take years.
“History books are actually where the real accountability lies,” Chervinsky said. “If we don’t have that full story, it’s not an accountability system. And the very heart of a democracy is that leaders are accountable to the people.”
Trump’s erratic handling of documents could have more immediate effects than the eventual judgment of historians. The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 is examining the former president’s actions that day, but finding gaps in official records such as call logs.
There’s also the potential for legal trouble if Trump or his associates are determined to have mishandled any documents, especially if they’re classified. Presidents have the power to declassify any information they choose, but that expires after they leave office.
Concealing or destroying records is a crime with a potential prison term of three years; storing classified information in an unauthorized location can carry a sentence of up to five years.
Sandy Berger, President Bill Clinton’s former national security adviser, removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003. He claimed he took the files to help prepare testimony to the 9/11 Commission, which was probing intelligence failures in the years leading up to the terrorist attacks in 2001. Berger pleaded guilty and, instead of serving time behind bars, he paid a $50,000 fine.
The House Oversight Committee has asked the National Archives to detail the records it recovered from Mar-a-Lago by Friday.
