For a good chunk of Trump's presidency, there was a flurry of correspondence between the White House & NARA about the preservation of presidential records & adherence to the PRA & WH counsel circulated memos about following the law
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In March 2017, Sens McCaskill & Carper wrote to Archivist David Ferriero asking whether NARA was aware of any efforts to skirt the PRA. Ferriero responded that his staff provided a briefing to Trump WH staffers on the PRA.
In October 2017, Stefan Passantino circulated a PRA compliance reminder around the WH and he noted: "Failure to abide by these requirements may lead to administrative penalties. The willful destruction or concealment of federal records is a federal crime."
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Then stories started circulating in 2018 that Trump was destroying presidential records by tearing them up. That prompted another discussion with NARA officials.
Earlier this year, Archivist David Ferriero responded to several congressional inquiries about the Trump White House's records preservation efforts during Trump's tenure and steps NARA took since January 20, 2021 to recover records not turned over.
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In another letter, this one sent to a House and Senate Committee earlier this year, Archivist Ferriero described the extent of the Trump White House failed record preservation efforts related to capturing social media content
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That letter Ferriero sent to the House and Senate oversight committees was required under the PRA when all presidential records are not captured by an administration and not turned over to NARA. In this case, the records in question were social media records.
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Ferriero added that while NARA took legal custody of the Trump WH presidential records on Jan 20, 2021, "it is not uncommon for there to be a delay before NARA takes physical custody of all of the records..."
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NARA had made clear that it could only provide "guidance" on Presidential Records Act compliance to an incumbent administration
Did the back & forth between NARA & WH during Trump's 4 years as POTUS about preserving presidential records foreshadow what took place at MAL this week? I'm not sure.
But l/w, CRS released a 2 page memo on the PRA & noted Congress may want to further address the issue
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Here's the full CRS note on the PRA
Importantly, it states: "The PRA does not provide a deadline for the physical transfer of records materials, although it does provide for a transfer of legal responsibility for materials to the Archivist in 44 U.S.C. §2203."
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The type of classified national security information protected under EO 13526 is wide-ranging: military plans, weapons systems, or operations; foreign government information; intelligence activities (including covert action), intelligence sources or methods, or cryptology;
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foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources; scientific technological, or economic matters relating to the national security; U.S. Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities;
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vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, or plans or protection services relating to the national security; or development, production, or use of weapons of mass destruction.
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NEW: 8 friggin years ago, I filed a #FOIA request w/NSA for docs used at a presentation the agency gave at Purdue University where NSA was trying to shore up its image after the Snowden leaks
NSA *just* responded & turned over a slide deck. Let's take a look at some
🙄
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NSA personnel are friendly and cool and play guitar
I got major sections of the Mueller report related to Stone unredacted after a three year epic legal battle while I was working at @BuzzFeedNews (thx @mvtopic). Once again, here are some before & after pics of the redactions and & unredacted
After 5.5 years, a bunch of investigative projects, 2 of which were Pulitzer finalists, and successfully prying loose tens of thousands of docs via #FOIA from govt agencies, I'm taking a buyout and leaving @BuzzFeedNews. Tomorrow is my last day.
It was a hell of a run.
This has been the most rewarding reporting job I ever had. In addition to taking on big investigative projects, I was given the opportunity to build a groundbreaking FOIA operation that would make history, literally, and collaborate with every desk in our newsroom.
Anyone can duplicate another reporter's FOIA request & ask for the same docs a reporter requested. But in the FOIA community, as a matter of decency & respect, we usually reach out to the reporter who made the request to inquire about it.
This is definitely a subtweet btw
It's my fault for tweeting a few of these images out last month that I had been waiting 5 yrs for related to a project I have been working on. I didn't expect another reporter would then duplicate my request over the past month to get ahead of me. Sleazy.