Aides to the former president described a chaotic process that was colored by the boss’ desire to keep litigating the election and retain his own mementos.
Standing amid half-packed boxes in early 2021, staffers in the West Wing grabbed packages of presidential M&M’s and tried to obtain giant photos of the president and the first couple that adorned the walls, eager for a memento from their White House service.
Trump-themed accessories and memorabilia were snagged. Aides stood in empty offices and tried to find a moment to secure presidential greetings for a loved one’s upcoming birthday or anniversary.
It was part free-for-all, part fire sale. Souvenirs were kept, records were indiscriminately thrown away. The Oval Office and its adjacent private dining room were only packed up the weekend before former President Donald Trump moved out, former aides said.
So-called “burn bags” were widely present, according to two former Trump White House officials, with red stripes marking ones that held sensitive classified material meant to be destroyed. Such bags, according to Mark Zaid, an attorney well-steeped in national security law, are common. But one former official said that staff would put seemingly non-classified items in there too, such as handwritten letters and notes passed to principals. Zaid said it wasn’t necessarily improper to dispose of non-classified information this way, provided it was done under the confines of the law. But those who observed the process later conceded that it was not entirely clear if documents should have been headed to the National Archives instead of the incinerator.
It was in those tumultuous moments that — investigators allege — boxes containing classified material were packed and sent to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Nineteen months later, Trump’s handling of presidential records and West Wing material has landed him in unprecedented legal peril. Last week, the FBI resorted to getting a warrant to retrieve those items, which, the bureau said, included four sets of top-secret documents and seven other sets of classified information.
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There was also a belief that Trump simply didn’t care for the law around records preservation.
“The counsel’s office was often working at cross-purposes with the way President Trump treated records,” Blanton said. “To Trump, the White House was another casino he had bought. This one was just on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Trump has long loved to collect and display items that remind him and others of his personal feats. His golf courses and the office in Trump Tower are cluttered with photos, magazine covers featuring him, and souvenirs attesting to the perks of his wealth and fame. Whatever he didn’t want was usually whisked away with little regard. Indeed, as he worked in the Oval Office, Trump would end each day pushing the materials from his desk into a cardboard box that, once filled, would be sent off and replaced, according to two former officials.
Often, Trump would call for aides to bring him a souvenir — a letter from North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un was a particular favorite — and he’d delight in showing off for guests.
Under investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws, Trump has denied wrongdoing while offering shifting explanations for the presence of the material at Mar-a-Lago. Aides said they recalled very few conversations during the transition about what to do with the documents that Trump would, on occasion, bring up to the White House residence.
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Sloppiness ensued in many departments. Many staffers seemed more interested in securing copies of “jumbos” — the giant photos that adorned the West Wing’s walls — than sorting and packing up their files. Those who stayed focused on juggling the operational demands of running a country with the political whims of a president who, until just days before, was trying to cling to power.
There was, simply, not much care for protocol.
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- Discussion
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Souvenirs were kept. Records tossed. Burn bags used indiscriminately. Former aides described a chaotic pack up of Trump’s White House.
It was in those frantic, final days that — investigators say — boxes with classified material were sent to Mar-a-Lago. https://t.co/2FCpFHynTm
— POLITICO (@politico) August 17, 2022
For four years, Trump treated the federal govt and the political apparatus operating in his name as an extension of his private real estate company. It all belonged to him, he felt, melded together into a Trump brand that he had been nurturing for decades. https://t.co/FzXWSCOkts
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 18, 2022
So WH Counsel had told COS Meadows that material in boxes in the residence needed to be sent to the archives–but Trump insisted at least some of it, including documents marked highly classified, be shipped to Florida.
Trump knew he was breaking the law.https://t.co/2KGnDSLamM
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 20, 2022
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