My general word-of-mouth understanding is that traditionally, the Archivist sends guidance and draft internal guidance orders to the White House for POTUS to sign on January 21.eric76 said:I've read that NARA employees were sent to the White House a month or so before to train the White House employees on how different records should be handled and to help them with the job.jrdaustin said:My guess is no. Up until Jan 6th, I think Trump believed that the election was fraudulent and that his presidency would continue. If that's the case, then the WH had 14 days to prepare to vacate. Basically, just enough time to throw everything into boxes and sort it out later.FishrCoAg said:From election day to inauguration is 2+ months. Did they even start sorting or were they too focused on the "stop the steal" campaign that Trump is on reportedly on record as knowing was untrue?jrdaustin said:
Mondemonium's attempt at derail notwithstanding, here's my follow up:
As I understand the situation, there is necesarilly a time required in which the Archivist of NARA and the EOP have to determine what is Presidential, and what is Personal. Members of an outgoing administration have days to get everything packed and out. Naturally, Presidential and Personal records will be comingled.
PRA desginates that a NARA "holding factility" be designated to house the records, but looking a recent precedent, the fact that Biden and Pence as VPs had boxes of records as well that contained classified documents indicates that there is not a difinitive process has been normally followed.
So my questions are:
1. Why did not NARA and/or the Biden administration have a facility designated to transport records to? And is this even a thing? What happened to the boxes of records under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, & Obama while Personal records were being sorted from Presidential records.
2. Was it not Biden/NARA that originally authorized sending the docs to MAL?
(I would argue that the first Bush presidency might provide the only comparable example as GHWB was the only one-term president who had run for re-election and lost.) Were Bush's records sent to A&M? I do know that the library was not built yet. I'm not even sure ground was broken. So where did they go?
To me, these are the driving factors of whether this indictment holds water. To Mondemonium's derail, it is an inane argument to assert that Trump should have had to turn over all his Personal records along with Presidential records to avoid prosecution. And this is not about drinking a Beer. It's an administrative, process dispute that has been conflated to a crime for political purposes. Everyone knows it. Half the country is willing to admit it.
Not the smartest thing to do, but hardly criminal.
And while the PRA doesn't tell the White House exactly how to do it, the PRA says the designations are supposed to be made contemporaneously when the material is created.
Quote:
(b) Documentary materials produced or received by the President, the President's staff, or units or individuals in the Executive Office of the President the function of which is to advise or assist the President, shall, to the extent practicable, be categorized as Presidential records or personal records upon their creation or receipt and be filed separately.
