Watchdog group sues National Archives over classified documents

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Double standards, much? Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), an ethics watchdog, has filed a ‘transparency lawsuit’ against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The legal action was taken because PPT asked for documents relating to any communications with the White House from acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall last August, yet it has received no response.

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Now the National Archives is accused of double standards for demanding records from the past six administrations while failing to provide its own.

‘ These documents could shed light on conversations between NARA and the White House during a highly politically fraught period leading up to the unprecedented raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence to obtain presidential records and the discovery of classified material at several locations associated with President Joe Biden’, PPT said in reference to their lawsuit.

‘Apparently, it’s too much to ask that the agency requesting everyone else turn over their records live by its own rules when its documents are sought,’ Michael Chamberlain, Director of Protect the Public’s Trust said. ‘

‘At a time when the public could use some clarity and transparency on highly charged episodes, this appears to par for the course for an administration proclaiming itself the most transparent in history.

‘Yet one more reason why the American public’s trust in its government continues to plummet.’

The American people still don’t know what the materials found at Mar-a-Lago contained, even generally speaking, and the same goes for documents and other written material from Joe Biden’s home and office at the Penn-Biden Center. There are now documents from the home office of Mike Pence to consider. The FBI is making arrangements to scour his home in Carmel (Indianapolis) Indiana for any material that may have been missed by Pence’s lawyer. In the case of the Trump residence raid, are we really talking about nuclear codes as that possibility was briefly mentioned in some reporting of the event? C’mon, man.

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It has been a strange period of time. After months of negotiating between Trump and his lawyers with the National Archives for the return of the classified documents, suddenly Mar-a-Lago was raided by the FBI, lights flashing, armed agents swarming the residence. The media was tipped off and they were there to record the raid. Trump wasn’t even there. Nonetheless, the media got its story. There was even a picture of alleged classified document folders strewn across a carpeted floor published on social media. Then we learned that Biden’s lawyers found some classified documents at the Penn Biden Center just before the November midterm elections but that news was held for two months so as not to influence the elections for Democrats. The FBI conveniently arranged a time to search the Biden property. The same courtesy is being extended to Pence. No dramatic pre-dawn raids with media in tow.

The House Oversight Committee chairman said the National Archives was blocked from making a statement when the first documents were found at Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center in November. Rep. James Comer said only the White House or the DOJ could have prevented the release of that information. Comer argues that it shows that the White House and the DOJ are interfering with this. The National Archives is supposed to be an individual federal entity. You know, like the FBI. I know.

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We’ll see if the National Archives fulfills the request for documents by PPT. Or, has the corrupt Biden administration totally clamped down on the agency, especially since the publicity over the Mar-a-Lago raid, even from non-Trump supporters, backfired so spectacularly?

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