#presidential records act

[deadpresidents]

Are Presidential libraries for all ex presidents mandatory or more customary?

It's not mandatory to build a library, but all Presidents are required to preserve the records of their Administration, and that usually is done by building a library under the auspices of the National Archives. Building a library or museum or foundation is also a way for a former President to shape their legacy and have a base for their post-Presidential activities and activism.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

102 pieces of paper

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Former President Donald Trump, who is charged with stashing national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them, relied on advice from the leader of the conservative organization Judicial Watch, who convinced Trump that he had the legal right to retain the documents and encouraged him to fight against the Justice Department, The Washington Post reported.

Trump's lawyers repeatedly urged him to return the document remaining at his residence but the former president instead turned to Tom Fitton, who doesn't have a law degree but has remained vocal about Trump having the right to keep the documents he took with him at the end of his presidency.

"If Trump had simply given these documents back, when he was first asked, there would have been no jury subpoena, there would have been no search warrant, and there would have been no criminal charges," former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, told Salon. "In fact, in each of those steps of the investigation, if Trump had returned the documents, there likely would not have been a criminal prosecution."

Fitton reportedly argued that the records belonged to Trump, pointing to a 2012 court case involving his organization which he claimed granted the former President the authority to exercise control over the records from his own term in office.

Trump has echoed his claims referring to a ruling in which the judge said it was okay for President Bill Clinton to keep audiotapes of his conversations with historian Taylor Branch during Clinton's White House tenure.

"Under the Presidential Records Act — which is civil, not criminal — I had every right to have these documents," Trump said in a speech Tuesday night. "The crucial legal precedent is laid out in the most important case ever on this subject, known as the Clinton socks case."

But the key difference between the two comparisons is that Clinton's recordings were from his own interviews with a journalist and not presidential records like Trump's, legal experts say.

"The Presidential Records Act distinguishes between 'presidential records' and 'personal records' and required President Trump to preserve White House documents because those are the property of the U.S government," Temidayo Aganga-Williams, partner at Selendy Gay Elsberg and former senior investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 committee, told Salon.

Even as Trump's advisers urged him to cooperate with investigators in their efforts to retrieve the classified documents he had taken when he departed from the White House, Trump brought up Fitton's name whenever he refused to comply with their advice, sources told The Post.

"Trump all but dared DOJ to indict him," McQuade said. "In order to be even-handed in applying the law to offenders who willfully abuse their power to handle classified information, DOJ really had no choice but to indict Trump."

Despite multiple opportunities to avoid criminal charges, Trump consistently refused to return the presidential documents requested by the National Archives since February 2021, sources familiar with the case told The Post. Trump was not charged for the documents he did return voluntarily.

"The national security documents that President Trump is criminally charged with keeping at Mar-a-Lago and refusing to return were always government records and could not be considered personal records in any reasonable reading of federal law," Aganga-Williams said.

Even as Trump publicly maintained that he was fully cooperating with government officials, his behind-the-scenes communication with Fitton reveals a different story.

In February, after the National Archives acknowledged retrieving 15 boxes of presidential records from Trump, he began receiving calls from Fitton telling him it was a mistake to give the records to the Archives, CNN reported.

One source told CNN that Trump requested Fitton brief his attorneys on the legal argument.

Fitton reportedly told Trump's team that they should never have let the Archives "strong-arm" him into returning them. He then suggested to Trump that if the Archives came back, he should not give up any additional records.

Contrary to Fitton's advice to "completely stonewall the government," Trump did hand over some material in June after a meeting between his lawyers and federal investigators at Mar-a-Lago, according to CNN.

However, investigators later found evidence suggesting that not all classified material had been returned, despite the former president being issued a subpoena. The FBI eventually carried out a search of Mar-a-Lago last August and found over 100 documents with classified markings at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

Trump intentionally deceived his own advisers regarding the contents of the boxes, telling them they only contained newspaper clippings and clothes, seven Trump advisers told The Post. He consistently refused to return the documents even after receiving warnings from some of his most loyal advisers about the potential risks involved.

His actions have mirrored the advice of Fitton – a staunch election denier who promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic after the 2020 election, according to Media Matters.

Fitton entered Trump's inner circle after he caught the former president's attention, who viewed him as one of the most effective critics of the Mueller probe from his frequent appearances on Fox News, Politico reported.

His media appearances are also similar to Trump's.

In one interview with Politico, Fitton discussed what he perceived as "abuses" of power by the Justice Department and the FBI, labeled the Mueller investigation as "unconstitutional" and asserted that there was sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute Hillary Clinton. He has built a following by appearing on right-wing networks and filing lawsuits against the federal government alleging bureaucratic corruption.

During one Fox interview, Fitton himself corrected host Jeanine Pirro after she referred to him as a lawyer, and then responded: "You should be, you get more out of courts than anyone I know." But Fitton's limited legal expertise hasn't stopped the former president from seeking advice from him. It's only complicated the role Trump's attorneys play in representing him. It's also left Trump scrambling to find legal representation a day before his court appearance after two of his top lawyers stepped down just hours after a Florida grand jury voted to charge him.

Most recently though, Fitton's advice appears to have led Trump to being charged with 37 counts including alleged violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction and false statements.

[garudabluffs]

 April 3, 2024

Former federal prosecutor says Trump could be jailed if convicted for falsifying business records

Former federal prosecutor says Trump could be jailed if convicted for falsifying business records (msn.com)

[deadpresidents]

Never mess with an archivist.

[imkeepinit]

BREAKING: TRUMP INDICTED BY DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

[juniestar]

How on earth is harris v trump a tight race??? How do ppl look at donald trump having SEEN the way he acted in his presidential term, seen his LENGTHY criminal record, seen the fact that NOBODY else in his party aside from some loose hanging cultists wants to associate with him, seen the way he literally incited riots after losing an election which resulted in at least seven deaths, seen his total lack of coherent policy plan, and think yeah well but Kamala is a cop. Which isn’t even fucking true

[pcttrailsidereader]

The Harris Public Lands Policy - What We Might Expect

By and large, the track record of the Biden-Harris contrasts with the Trump administration record and the 2025 Project outline as it relates to public lands. For decades, the federal government has prioritized oil and gas drilling, hardrock mining and livestock grazing on public lands across the country (for that reason, some have referred to the BLM as the Bureau of Logging and Mining). The Biden administration recently issued a far-reaching Interior Department rule that puts conservation, recreation and renewable energy development on equal footing with resource extraction.

This represents a huge shift in the management of roughly 245 million acres of public property — about one-tenth of the nation’s land mass. The extent to which this change will withstand the inevitable legal challenges from fossil fuel industry groups and Republican officials is unclear. It will be intensely contested.

It does open the door for the BLM to auction off “restoration leases” and “mitigation leases” to entities with plans to restore or conserve public lands.

The Biden administration has conserved more than 41 million acres of land and water. This includes restoration of some of the National Monuments reduced under the Trump administration (Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments). He also cancelled the leases granted by the Trump administration to explore for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.

Biden also established a national goal to conserve at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and freshwater and 30 percent of U.S. ocean areas by 2030, in an initiative commonly referred to as 30x30. This is an ambitious initiative that has received significant pushback as a government 'land grab'.

Although Biden has disappointed some in the environmental movement, the Biden-Harris administration has acknowledged that climate change is real and requires action, has significant achievements in land and water conservation, and has undone a number of the Trump administration decisions.

Whether Harris would continue this trend is likely but not a certainty. However, in her campaign speeches she has been pragmatic but aggressive in her support for the environment and careful stewardship of natural resources. And Walz has promoted a $2B initiative to help the State of Minnesota reduce its carbon footprint.

Although the Trump administration does have to its credit the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), the legacy of Trump is one that should be of concern to most of us who love the PCT, the wilderness, and are concerned about our climate. In looking at the record of both candidates, it seems clear based upon their respective records and stated plans, that it is very important that you get out and vote . . . and consider carefully the Trump and the Harris commitment to caring for the planet and how they fit with your values.

It is imperative that those of us who use and love the land, make our voices heard by voting!

[absolute-immunities]

🥲

[akajustmerry]

I wanna say from very bottom of my heart that I deeply truly rabidly despise Taylor Swift and the glamorous black hole of immorality, gracelessness and lack of integrity she represents. I truly hate that I have to witness her 2-chord mediocre stream of consciousness high school ballads win the highest accolades in music. I hate how there's not a single discourse - from sports to fucking queer theory - that's free of her. I hate her white feminism, how she's never stood for a single thing that didn't ensure her wealth. I hate how she's credited and praised for things marginalised artists did before her. I hate how she latches onto new artists so they serve HER fame, like remoras to a shark. I hate her phony humble beginnings narrative that people parrot without acknowledging she's a nepo baby. I hate what she did to olivia rodrigo and how no one talks about it. I hate the waste her concerts, lifestyle, and merch create and that a young girl died from heat illness at her concert because the swift team prioritises exclusivity and profit over safety. I hate how she and her fandom popularised the idea that critiquing a woman = misogyny. I hate how she's in her mid 30s and still writes songs like she's a teenager and that songs written by a woman in her 30s acting like a teenager are inescapable. I hate she deliberately re-releases songs and records so other artists can't chart. I hate how she regularly and openly associates with bigoted people but somehow is always given the benefit of the doubt. Most of all I hate how she does and continues to do all of this and so much more and her fans will always have a, "but!" always have an, "anyway!". she's openly and uncritically supporting a presidential candidate who's administration is enacting genocide, but because she made a joke with her cats, we're meant to be like, "yay!" I truly despise Taylor Swift and the black hole of neoliberal white feminist mediocrity she is in popular culture.

[lets-steal-an-archive]

By Bernie Sanders | July 13, 2024

I will do all that I can to see that President Biden is re-elected. Why? Despite my disagreements with him on particular issues, he has been the most effective president in the modern history of our country and is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump — a demagogue and pathological liar. It’s time to learn a lesson from the progressive and centrist forces in France who, despite profound political differences, came together this week to soundly defeat right-wing extremism.

I strongly disagree with Mr. Biden on the question of U.S. support for Israel’s horrific war against the Palestinian people. The United States should not provide Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government with another nickel as it continues to create one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history.

I strongly disagree with the president’s belief that the Affordable Care Act, as useful as it has been, will ever address America’s health care crisis. Our health care system is broken, dysfunctional and wildly expensive and needs to be replaced with a “Medicare for all” single-payer system. Health care is a human right.

And those are not my only disagreements with Mr. Biden.

But for over two weeks now, the corporate media has obsessively focused on the June presidential debate and the cognitive capabilities of a man who has, perhaps, the most difficult and stressful job in the world. The media has frantically searched for every living human being who no longer supports the president or any neurologist who wants to appear on TV. Unfortunately, too many Democrats have joined that circular firing squad.

Yes. I know: Mr. Biden is old, is prone to gaffes, walks stiffly and had a disastrous debate with Mr. Trump. But this I also know: A presidential election is not an entertainment contest. It does not begin or end with a 90-minute debate.

Enough! Mr. Biden may not be the ideal candidate, but he will be the candidate and should be the candidate. And with an effective campaign taht speaks to the needs of working families, he will not only defeat Mr. Trump but beat him badly. It’s time for Democrats to stop the bickering and nit-picking.

I understand that some Democrats get nervous about having to explain the president’s gaffes and misspeaking names. But unlike the Republicans, they do not have to explain away a candidate who now has 34 felony convictions and faces charges that could lead to dozens of additional convictions, who has been hit with a $5 million judgment after he was found liable in a sexual abuse case, who has been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits, who has repeatedly gone bankrupt and who has told thousands of documented lies and falsehoods.

Supporters of Mr. Biden can speak proudly about a good and decent Democratic president with a record of real accomplishment. The Biden administration, as a result of the American Rescue Plan, helped rebuild the economy during the pandemic far faster than economists thought possible. At a time when people were terrified about the future, the president and those of us who supported him in Congress put Americans back to work, provided cash benefits to desperate parents and protected small businesses, hospitals, schools and child care centers.

After decades of talk about our crumbling roads, bridges and water systems, we put more money into rebuilding America’s infrastructure than ever before — which is projected to create millions of well-paying jobs. And we did not stop there. We made the largest-ever investment in climate action to save the planet. We canceled student debt for nearly five million financially strapped Americans. We cut prices for insulin and asthma inhalers, capped out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs and got free vaccines to the American people. We battled to defend women’s rights in the face of moves by Trump-appointed jurists to roll back reproductive freedom and deny women the right to control their own bodies.

So, yes, Mr. Biden has a record to run on. A strong record. But he and his supporters should never suggest that what’s been accomplished is sufficient. To win the election, the president must do more than just defend his excellent record. He needs to propose and fight for a bold agenda that speaks to the needs of the vast majority of our people — the working families of this country, the people who have been left behind for far too long.

At a time when the billionaires have never had it so good and when the United States is experiencing virtually unprecedented income and wealth inequality, over 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, real weekly wages for the average worker have not risen in over 50 years, 25 percent of seniors live each year on $15,000 or less, we have a higher rate of childhood poverty than almost any other major country, and housing is becoming more and more unaffordable — among other crises.

This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. We can do better. We must do better. Joe Biden knows that. Donald Trump does not. Joe Biden wants to tax the rich so that we can fund the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. Donald Trump wants to cut taxes for the billionaire class. Joe Biden wants to expand Social Security benefits. Donald Trump and his friends want to weaken Social Security. Joe Biden wants to make it easier for workers to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages and benefits. Donald Trump wants to let multinational corporations get away with exploiting workers and ripping off consumers. Joe Biden respects democracy. Donald Trump attacks it.

This election offers a stark choice on issue after issue. If Mr. Biden and his supporters focus on these issues — and refuse to be divided and distracted — the president will rally working families to his side in the industrial Midwest swing states and elsewhere and win the November election. And let me say this as emphatically as I can: For the sake of our kids and future generations, he must win.

Bernie Sanders is the senior senator from Vermont.

[deadpresidents]

Which presidential library do documents regarding the transition from one administration to another end up in? Both?

I imagine that copies would eventually end up in both libraries, but each Administration is required to preserve documents or records that are produced during their term of office. So, for example, any documents or materials produced by the Administration of George W. Bush to help with the transition leading to Barack Obama's inauguration would officially need to be preserved by the Bush Administration. Anything from noon on January 20, 2001-January 20, 2009 would be Bush Administration records, anything from noon on January 20, 2009-January 20, 2017 would be Obama Administration records, and so on.

It all falls under the umbrella of the National Archives and Records Administration anyway as the NARA is responsible for maintaining all modern Presidential Libraries. But under the Presidential Records Act, each President bears the legal responsibility for preserving and ultimately transferring the records produced by their respective Administrations to the NARA.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

She wonders why people don't like her.

'DEPLORABLES' to 'Cult.'

The 🌎 to Hillary:

Byron Donalds: "I stopped caring about what Hillary Clinton had to say a LONG time ago. But since she wants to say I'm in a cult, let me engage. Hillary, you LIED multiple times, deleted emails, destroyed evidence, and laundered phony information on Trump. You did all this and still lost."

Their plans backfired, so Hillary dressed up like a sherpa in 90 degree weather to activate her coven: Demoralize & Divide Americans by referring to them as a cult.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Fox News host Sean Hannity said Monday he could not imagine Donald Trump taking sensitive documents with him upon leaving the White House. But in a telling interview, Trump quickly corrected him and said that he had the right to "take stuff" as he saw fit.

"I can't imagine you ever saying, um, 'Bring me some of the boxes that we brought back from the White House, I'd like to look at them,'" Hannity told Trump during the interview that aired Monday night. "Did you ever do that?"

"I would have the right to do that, there's nothing wrong with it," Trump claimed.

"I know you," Hannity cut in. "I don't think you would do it."

Trump replied that he doesn't "have a lot of time," but "I would have the right to do that."

"I would do that," the former president added.

According to the Justice Department, Trump did exactly that, and refused to return the records for months after leaving the White House.

In the end, the FBI was forced to execute a search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida to recover the documents, some of which bore the highest classified markings. Trump's retention of the records is now at the center of a federal criminal investigation into his handling of national security information.

After Trump said during his Monday interview that he would take documents from the White House, Hannity, who has long been one of the former president's closest confidants, attempted to cut him off.

"Let me move on," Hannity said. But Trump had a few other points he wanted to make.

He falsely claimed that the Presidential Records Act gives him "the right to take stuff" and "the right to look at stuff."

"But they have the right to talk, and we have the right to talk," Trump added. "This would have all been worked out. All of a sudden, they raided Mar-a-Lago — viciously raided Mar-a-Lago."

The former president went on to claim that he has some "tapes" in his possession that the feds don't want him to show the public, including one of the FBI executing its warrant.

"I'll take that tape, and I'll air that tape," Hannity said.

"I know you would," Trump replied. "Everybody would take that tape."

Trump's lawyers have repeatedly invoked the Presidential Records Act when arguing that he was justified in moving records from the White House after leaving office.

They've said, among other things, that he could have reasonably viewed the roughly 100 documents marked classified that were recovered from Mar-a-Lago as his personal property, and that the courts have "very limited judicial oversight over such categorization." But legal experts say they appear to have taken an expansive view of the PRA that gives the government control of all but a small portion of records, which were created or received by the president or his staff.

Federal prosecutors have largely dismissed that argument, as well as Trump's public claim that he had declassified all the government records that were retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.

Trump "principally seeks to raise questions about the classification status of the records and their categorization under the Presidential Records Act ('PRA')," the DOJ said in one filing last year. "But Plaintiff does not actually assert—much less provide any evidence—that any of the seized records bearing classification markings have been declassified."

Moreover, although the former president has frequently claimed he had a "standing order" to declassify all the records that were moved to Mar-a-Lago, more than a dozen of his former aides told CNN in September that they had no knowledge of such an order.

[garudabluffs]

Andrew Weissmann: ‘Judge Cannon does not want this to go to trial before the election'

Mar 21, 2024 #DOJ#Trump#Cannon

Andrew Weissmann, former top prosecutor at the Justice Department, and Basil Smikle, Director of the Public Policy Program at Hunter College join Alicia Menendez in for Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with reaction to Judge Cannon allowing Donald Trump to release the names of witnesses identities despite the risks to the case and safety of witnesses, and how her actions continue to feed into the action of Trump’s legal strategy of delay, delay, delay. 

1,204 Comments

[nodynasty4us]

Trump’s admissions place the start of the wrongdoing in DC, not in Florida where he might have more sympathetic judges and jurors.