Former President Donald Trump reportedly told advisers he needed to keep records tied to the Russiagate investigation himself or else the “Deep State” could destroy them.
Trump reportedly told a number of staffers he had to keep the documents safe, according to Rolling Stone. “Trump told several people working in and outside the White House that he was concerned Joe Biden’s incoming administration — or the ‘Deep State’ — would supposedly ‘shred,’ bury, or destroy ‘the evidence’ that Trump was somehow wronged,” the report claims.
The outlet cited “a person with direct knowledge of the situation and another source briefed on the matter.”
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It is not clear that any of the records that had been at Mar-a-Lago or were seized by the FBI during its unprecedented Aug. 8 raid of Trump’s Florida resort home were related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation or Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe.
“I think they were looking for everything but what they said,” Trump said of the Mar-a-Lago raid during an interview on the conservative Wendy Bell Radio program on Sept. 1. “I think they were looking for Hillary Clinton emails. I really think — I think they thought, and who knows, you know, boxes full of stuff, I think they thought that Hillary Clinton — they were something to do with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. They were afraid that things were in there, part of their scam material.”
Trump’s former director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, said it is possible that Trump-Russia records were at Mar-a-Lago but that he wasn’t sure.
“I don’t have any insight into the records that were at Mar-a-Lago. I didn’t play any role in that process. I don’t know,” Ratliffe told CBS News in late August. “It wouldn’t surprise me if there were records related to that there, but that is just speculation. I don’t have personal knowledge.”
Ratcliffe said “yes” when asked if Trump’s declassification efforts were done by the book, saying, “The president is the ultimate classification and declassification authority, and the process is as simple as him saying, ‘I want this declassified.’ And then others need to carry that out.”
The Justice Department argued in late August that when Trump’s team handed over 15 boxes of records to the National Archives in January, Trump did not claim “that any of the documents in the boxes containing classification markings had been declassified.”
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The department further argued that when Trump’s team handed over further records in early June, “neither counsel nor the custodian asserted that the former President had declassified the documents.”
President Joe Biden himself scoffed at Trump’s legal defense when talking to reporters in late August, saying, “I just want you to know I’ve declassified everything in the world. I’m president, I can do — c’mon.”
