The NY Times headline and capsule summary has this to say:
The National Archives consulted with the Justice Department about the discovery after the former president sent back documents that he had improperly taken from the White House when he left office.
The string of revelations about the way the Trump White House handled official documents continues to unfold. His habit of ripping up documents has been known for some time — despite federal law that they be preserved. (And why is Trump so averse to leaving a paper trail? If he’s done nothing wrong he has nothing to worry about, right?)
There have been reports that staffers had to salvage papers and tape them back together, go through burn bags of documents to retrieve items, and so on. And… this being the Trump administration, how many documents were still destroyed that should not have been is a question that may never be answered. But does it really need to be, given what we do know?
The latest is that Trump took at least 15 boxes of records with him when he left the White House — and there’s more now being revealed since they have been retrieved and are starting to be examined:
The National Archives and Records Administration discovered what it believed was classified information in documents Donald J. Trump had taken with him from the White House as he left office, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The discovery, which occurred after Mr. Trump returned 15 boxes of documents to the government last month, prompted the National Archives to reach out to the Justice Department for guidance, the person said. The department told the National Archives to have its inspector general examine the matter, the person said.
It is unclear what the inspector general has done since then, in particular, whether the inspector general has referred the matter to the Justice Department.
Now it’s possible that the material was included by mistake — although it would appear none of it should have been taken in the first place. The article documents how Trump and those around him repeatedly mishandled and abused classified materials. While President, Trump had the power to declassify anything he chose — but that power does not extend to a former President. In short, this looks like one more in a long line of potentially criminal actions by Trump.
But…. nothing should/could be done because:
Making a referral to the Justice Department would put senior officials in the position of having to decide whether to open an investigation, a scenario that would thrust the department into a highly contentious political matter.
emphasis added
Because nothing is more contentious or political than holding Trump or any other Republican accountable for anything.
And here’s the kicker at the end of The NY Times report:
If Mr. Trump was found to have taken materials with him that were still classified at the time he left the White House, prosecuting him would be extremely difficult and it would pit the Justice Department against Mr. Trump at a time when Attorney General Merrick B. Garland is trying to depoliticize the department.
The department and the F.B.I. also still have significant scars from its investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton mishandled classified information, as the bureau was accused of unfairly tarnishing her and interfering in the 2016 election.
emphasis added
Shorter version: prosecuting Trump for breaking the law would be politicizing the department.
Facepalm.
Comparing this to the Clinton email ‘controversy’ is a non-starter in multiple ways.
1) Clinton and Trump were both in the middle of their Presidential campaigns at the time of the email allegations.
2) James Comey, head of the FBI at the time, violated guidelines intended to avoid politicizing such matters during an election campaign by making public statements about it.
3) No such consideration applies now to Trump who has not officially declared a run for office — and the election would not be until 2024 in any case.
4) Trump is already the subject of multiple investigations and potential prosecution over a number of matters, some of them predating his political career. It’s difficult to see how this could be construed as politicization but not the others. (Which of course is what Trump, the GOP, and right wing media are loudly claiming.)
5) To do nothing whether or not further investigation may warrant prosecution is politicizing in its own right. That Trump had classified documents in his possession that should have never been removed would seem to be prima facie evidence that absolutely requires at least investigating how that happened.
What is perhaps really objectionable about this report is the suggestion that because Hillary Clinton’s treatment was seen by some as unfair, the appearance of further unfairness should be avoided — which coming from The NY Times is an incredible piece of sanctimony.
The NY Times had no compunctions about playing up the controversy over Clinton’s emails at the time. This report only refers to her handling of “classified information” and not “her emails”. It’s a rather telling omission. It also omits the way the media — particularly the NY Times — handled the story at the time. From 2019:
Last week, Congress received a brief, nine-page report from the State Department, which summarizes the department’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account to conduct work business while she was secretary of state. The report can be fairly summarized in two sentences: She shouldn’t have done that. But it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Thus, America finally has closure on a minor scandal that many of the nation’s most powerful and influential news editors treated as if it were the most important issue facing voters in the 2016 election. “In just six days,” according to an analysis of 2016 coverage published in the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), “the New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails as they did about all policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election.” And the Times was hardly alone in this regard.
By contrast, the Times’s piece on the State Department report concluding that Her Emails weren’t actually that big of a deal ran on page A16 in print. (It was featured somewhat more prominently on the Times’s online homepage.) Similarly, data provided to Vox by the liberal group Media Matters indicates that television news — all three major cable networks plus all three broadcast stations — spent a total of less than 56 minutes combined on the new State Department report.
emphasis added
The NY Times has apparently applied the Nixon Doctrine to the Trump administration and the GOP in general:
"Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
That should be “When a Republican president does it, that means that it is not illegal” That’s certainly the Republican position on such matters — remember the Unitary Executive theory? Not to mention not one but two impeachment hearings that the GOP turned into a farce. There are no limits, no constraints on the GOP, and no accountability.
And apparently The NY Times is okay with that because to make it an issue would be politicization. The media’s normalization of bad behavior by the GOP continues apace. In fact, The NY Times is actively enabling it.
Thursday, Feb 10, 2022 · 3:14:51 PM +00:00 · xaxnar
UDPATE: Tom Sullivan at Digby’s place has more, concluding with this:
The Washington Post addressed the matter last week:
“It is against the law, but the problem is that the Presidential Records Act, as written, does not have any real enforcement mechanism,” said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association. “It’s that sort of thing where there’s a law, but who has the authority to enforce the law, and the existing law is toothless.”
But while the Presidential Records Act may be toothless, concealment, destruction and misappropriation of govenment documents, including classified documents, are prosecutable in themselves. The question remains: Will the Department of Justice try to flush away evidence of those crimes by the Trump administration?
UPDATE: Talking Points Memo reports the House Oversight Committee has launched a probe into the way Trump handled documents.
House Oversight Committee chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) on Wednesday made good on her promise to investigate ex-President Donald Trump’s handling of White House documents after it was revealed that he’d taken at least 15 boxes of them to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Maloney sent an information request to National Archivist David Ferriero so that her committee could “examine the extent and impact” of Trump potentially violating the Presidential Records Act by failing to hand over the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), according to the Democrat’s letter that was obtained by the Washington Post.
Maloney asked Ferriero for an inventory of all the documents that were retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, plus information on whatever records Trump improperly tried to destroy amid reports of the ex-president ripping up documents.
In a commentary at TPM, Josh Marshall offers up some perspective on the matter, including this:
What I’m trying to capture here is that under the Presidential Records Act there is a penumbra of actions that can be reasonably judged as subject to good faith disagreement. There is a penumbra of lax or careless preservation which is subject to criticism or even investigation but also clearly not malicious. Crumpling up government documents and flushing them down the toilet can only be malicious and criminal under the terms of the law. It is definitionally willful.
We should be clear that this toilet-flushing story is so far only based on Haberman’s reporting. And even that reporting says White House staff assumed they were government documents. So let’s leave open the possibility that that report doesn’t pan out or can’t be confirmed. It hardly matters at this point. There is abundant and unrebutted reporting that Trump routinely tore up government documents. The fact that White House aides were in some or even many cases able to retrieve these documents and tape them back together hardly matters. This isn’t a matter of judgment calls or sloppiness. This is willful and deliberate destruction of government records for the purpose of concealment. Under the terms of the PRA this seems flagrantly criminal…
...You can’t be prosecuted on the basis of press reports. But if these reports are even broadly accurate they can’t be random. He needs to be shown being highly selective? Do we think he tried to flush or tear up all his presidential records? And if this isn’t willful — again, assuming the descriptions are broadly accurate — what would be willful? You don’t destroy documents for any reason other than the desire to keep them secret. And by the express terms of the PRA that’s illegal.
emphasis added
Friday, Feb 11, 2022 · 12:22:38 PM +00:00 · xaxnar
UPDATE 2-11-2022: The NY Times is reporting that the Republican reaction to news reports of how Trump mishandled classified material and official documents is so what?
Donald J. Trump once thundered that the questions surrounding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server were “bigger than Watergate.” On his 2016 presidential campaign, “where are her emails?” became a Republican rallying cry that was soon replaced with an even more threatening demand: “Lock her up.”
Now, it’s Mr. Trump who faces accusations of improperly taking government records to his private residence. But among Republicans, once so forceful about the issue of mishandling documents, there was little sign of outrage.
Several Republicans who once railed against Mrs. Clinton’s document retention practices did not respond Thursday to questions about Mr. Trump’s actions. Others who had been directly involved with investigating Mrs. Clinton declined to discuss the specifics except to suggest, without evidence, that the National Archives and Records Administration was treating Mr. Trump more harshly.
Completely missing from the article — which on the web version is a small story way down the front page — is any mention of the way the NY Times and the rest of the media blew the Clinton story up as a headline scandal for days before the election. Passing reference is made to the toilet allegations, but the reporter (Maggie Haberman) making them is left unnamed save for a link to Axios on her upcoming book.
It’s not only Republicans who are downplaying the story; The NY Times is following their lead.
And while the Gray Lady is doing that, they are also running a guest editorial on how Biden is mishandling the Ukraine situation — written by an American Enterprise Institute hack who did policy planning at the State Department under George W. Bush. Why anyone associated with either should be given any credibility is not a question The NY Times seems able to ask — of Republicans.