How Trump may have violated the Presidential Records Act
Geoff Bennett:
Judy, a source familiar with the matter tells me the National Archives has asked the Justice Department to review former President Trump's handling of White House records, as The Washington Post was first to report.
Now, officials at the Archives believe Trump may have violated the Presidential Records Act. And that request followed news that officials recovered 15 boxes of documents from Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, materials that should have been handed over to the government when he left office.
According to The Washington Post, the documents included letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the note Barack Obama left for Trump in the Oval Office on the day of his inauguration, and a map of the projected path of Hurricane Dorian in 2019, infamously altered by Donald Trump with a black sharpie.
And news first reported by The New York Times adding another level of concern, that the National Archives discovered what it believed was classified information in documents Trump had taken with him from the White House as he left office.
Add to all of that, new reporting from The New York Times' Maggie Haberman that, when President Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper.
The former president released a statement today, calling it a fake story. And it's not clear what the DOJ will do, if anything, to investigate.
For more, let's bring in Chuck Rosenberg, a former United States attorney and senior FBI official.
Chuck, it's great to have you with us.
And a DOJ referral, as I understand it, doesn't necessarily mean that there will be an investigation. And you handled such cases as a federal prosecutor. Do you see a compelling case here or not?
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