Move to Mar-a-Lago
Top secret papers, Kim letters, paintings: what Trump illegally took from the White House
A US President moves out: parts of Trump’s belongings on February 14, 2021 in front of the White House
© Gerald Herbert / Picture Alliance
After the end of his term, Donald Trump moved to Florida with secret documents and gifts. Forbidden. In the meantime he has returned everything – the “Washington Post” has researched the details.
“There was nothing normal about it,” says one who was there as the 15 boxes full of government documents traveled 1,597 kilometers from Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to Washington DC. were transported. Well, abnormal could be said about most aspects of Donald Trump’s presidency, and he’s also pretty good at describing the former head of state’s handling of all the notes, paperwork, correspondence, and gifts of state that arose over the course of his tenure. Trump simply took them to his Sunshine State property instead of handing them over to the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) as required.
Flushed papers down the toilet?
The “Washington Post” has the “long way” researched the 15 boxes with some secret documents and described them, which exactly the ex-president nailed down after he left the White House. The reason for the unveiling was the announcement of Maggie Haberman’s new book. The renowned journalist of the “New York Times” is considered the best expert on the Trump universe and reports in her work, which will be published in October, “”that the toilets in the White House were regularly clogged with printed paper.
You can only speculate what the paper was about, Haberman said. “It was in the pipes. And that was his bathroom.” According to the author, this was not an isolated case. The Washington Times confirms that the President tended to tear up and throw away papers. Here’s how employees would remember him cutting papers cleanly “and leaving them in quarters everywhere: on desks, in trash cans, strewn on floors, in the Oval Office as well as on Air Force One.”
Because of this habit, Nara employees regularly had to find and tape reams of paper. So did the parliamentary committee of inquiry, which had requested documents from the White House because of the Capitol storming on January 6, 2021 and received torn-up documents from the National Archives. In addition, some papers no longer appeared, writes the newspaper.
In his private apartment there were also stacks of government documents that Trump had taken with him, so that Nara employees had to search for them there,” according to the Post. The National Archives only managed to secure the collected documents on January 17 It had previously approached the Justice Department to obtain the documents at all.
“Love Letters” from Kim to Donald Trump
Among the official letters were several letters from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, which Trump called “love letters” during the rapprochement phase between the two countries. The letter that his predecessor Barack Obama had left in the Oval Office had also moved to Florida. The outgoing US President usually leaves a few personal words to his successor. Like all written records of a president, they too must be turned over to the National Archives.
Besides the official documents, the Nara has also received a number of gifts and souvenirs back:
- For example, the National Weather Service’s map of the course of hurricane “Dorian,” which Trump had manipulated with a black marker to refute accusations that he was wrong.
- The model of a redesigned Air Force One. Trump had wanted to have the presidential plane repainted: red, white and blue instead of light blue.
- The model of a wall slat that was to be erected on the US southern border with Mexico. Building a wall was one of his key campaign promises. More than a few kilometers long sections were never built.
- A high quality print of a painting depicting a dapper Trump in his signature red tie and Diet Coke in conversation with fellow Republican Presidents.
The ex-president apparently did not give out his collection again voluntarily. “At first it was unclear what he would be returned and when,” the Washington Post quoted an anonymous source involved with the transport as saying. Even close associates of Trump would not have known exactly what was in the boxes. According to both Nara and Trump, the handover was amicable, “friendly and without problems,” as the former White House chief himself said.
The employee responsible for transporting government documents at a Georgia state company told the Washington Post that there are usually security standards for such loads, such as GPS tracking for the vehicles. The 15 boxes are now stored in a special building, a “SCIF”, near Washington. And the US House of Representatives is now investigating the ex-president for violating the “Presidential Records Act”.