A Donald Trump ally is hyping a letter that the former president’s inner circle surely thought would throw shade at President Biden for the Aug. 8 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, but instead has opened up yet another can of worms for the legally troubled Republican leader.
The law of unintended consequences being what it is, what we actually learned is that Trump took more than 700 pages of classified documents with him when he left the White House, including documents containing some of the nation’s most closely held secrets, and didn’t – and still doesn’t – want to give them up.
The letter, dated May 10, was written by the acting U.S. archivist, Debra Steidel Wall. It was leaked to Trump ally John Solomon, who has tried to use the letter to make the claim that President Biden had been integral in the seizure of the documents.
But the letter, in fact, makes clear that Biden was not involved in the decision to reject Trump’s spurious claims to executive privilege, which has held up the Department of Justice from being able to make an assessment to the possible damage that has been done to national security from the breach by the former president.
To that end, Trump has filed this week a request in federal court to have a special master appointed to weed out any documents protected by executive privilege from the items collected in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago.
That motion, made to a federal judge appointed by Trump, Aileen M. Cannon, could further delay the review of the documents seized, and drag out the investigation into whether Trump wrongfully detained the classified documents and has obstructed the federal inquiry.
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Chris Graham
