The case of the purloined documents

Say what you will about Richard Nixon, but he knew the value of record-keeping. So did the Stasi of East Germany, but that’s another story. It was Richard Nixon’s penchant for record-keeping, in the form of tape-recorded White House conversations, that gave the American public a close look at his foul mouth and his machinations. Both of those were shocking when excerpts were played during the Watergate trial in 1973, and they can be heard at https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/watergate-trial-tapes. Declassified tapes of complete conversations that have been digitized are available at https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes.

The upshot of Nixon’s presidency is that in 1978 Congress passed the Presidential Records Act, which requires that any documentation that a US president or vice-president creates while serving in their officially elected capacity be forwarded to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of their term of office.

Before Nixon, presidential records had been considered personal property of a president, but that is no longer the case. In laying out the terms of the PRA, archives.gov says that “any records created or received by the President as part of his constitutional, statutory, or ceremonial duties are the property of the United States government.”

Four years ago, Trump left office with boxes and boxes of documents. When NARA checked the boxes that they did receive, national archives staff knew that records were missing and thus began the search for the purloined documents of the Trump administration. We’ve seen photos of the boxes in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom; we’ve seen classified document covers strewn on a floor.

This case has been drawn out and morphed from stolen documents into additional charges of election interference connected to the January 6 insurgence, but at its heart, Trump tried to overturn the PRA by fiat, which should surprise no one. Ruling by fiat is his M.O., and six weeks in, we are feeling the full force of it. In January, he announced that he would replace Colleen Shogan, the director of the National Archives.

Trump didn’t like being called out by the National Archives for the missing documents, but Colleen Shogan was not the archivist under Trump’s first term: David Ferriero was. Ferriero had the unpleasant task of alerting the Department of Justice that there was something rotten in the state of Mar-a-Lago, and they sent the FBI to investigate.

Special counsel Jack Smith wrote a two-volume report outlining the January 6 election interference in volume one and details about the documents case in volume two. When and if the public ever gets to see the details of volume two is unknown.

Attorney General Merrick Garland wanted to release volume one to the public. Good luck, AG! News sources said that select members of Congress would get to see the documents case report, but whether that happened seems doubtful.

 Smith had to wrap up his work after 45/47 got elected, and in his report to Garland, Smith said that volume two would not be publicly released while Trump’s co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliviera’s cases were pending.

In the stolen documents case, it’s important to remember that Trump maintained that they were his, but they were not his. They are ours, and we are still awaiting the return to their rightful place, to “we the people.” We’re in for a long wait.

As an archivist, this case has been in the center of my radar for years. The issue is unresolved, and in some ways, more dire. Many boxes of documents have yet to be returned. Will they ever? Will they simply disappear under cover of darkness? The firing of the Archivist of the United States, Dr. Shogan, is deeply concerning, and I’ll explore that more next time.

Joan Zwagerman writes from Storm Lake.