“Part of the MAGA movement is kind of a ‘fuck you’ to the government bureaucracy, which you can interpret as the Deep State,” said one former Trump staffer. Some of them were bitter and exhausted and displayed little desire or inclination to help an incoming administration that their boss claimed stole the election. Staff also began offboarding - leaving an increasing pile of work to a dwindling number of aides.
#Off white out of office professional
There was professional staff that helped manage the IT systems and National Archives and Records Administration embeds who reminded aides about record preservation.
#Off white out of office how to
Throughout the months of December and January, administration officials were given guidance by the White House counsel’s office on how to abide by the Presidential Records Act, the post-Watergate law that dictates the procedures and processes for preserving government documents. “We were 30 days behind what a typical administration would be,” recalled one former top Trump aide. Everything was running late, including the General Services Administration’s formal acknowledgment of a transition of power. began in earnest as the president was consumed with other matters: the aftermath of the January 6 riot and the impending impeachment. The final, frenzied pack up of Trump’s 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. 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.īut his approach to those final days was often echoed throughout the White House, as recounted in interviews with more than a dozen ex-White House officials and advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly describe the last days. Nineteen months later, Trump’s handling of presidential records and West Wing material has landed him in unprecedented legal peril. It was in those tumultuous moments that - investigators allege - boxes containing classified material were packed and sent to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. 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. 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 one former official said that staff would put seemingly non-classified items in there too, such as handwritten letters and notes passed to principals. Such bags, according to Mark Zaid, an attorney well-steeped in national security law, are common. 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.
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