A look at Donald Trump's disregard for post-presidential norms established after the Watergate era
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump isn't the first to face criticism for flouting rules and traditions around the safeguarding of sensitive government records, but national security experts say recent revelations point to an unprecedented disregard of post-presidency norms established after the Watergate era.Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's national security adviser held onto explosive records for years before turning them over to the Johnson presidential library.
“I cannot think of a historical precedent in which there was even the suspicion that a president or even a high-ranking officer in the administration, with the exception of the Nixon administration, purposely and consciously or even accidentally removing such a sizable volume of papers," said Richard Immerman, who served as assistant deputy director of national intelligence from 2007 to 2009.
The act specifies that immediately after a president leaves office, the National Archives and Records Administration takes legal and physical custody of the outgoing administration’s records and begins to work with the incoming White House staff on appropriate records management. James Trusty, a lawyer for Trump in the records matter, said on Fox News that Trump's possession of the sensitive government material was equivalent to hanging on to an “overdue library book.”
Similarly, Trump's White House counsel, Donald McGahn, sent a staff-wide memo in the first weeks of the administration underscoring “that presidential records are the property of the United States.”
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