Fact check: Trump’s latest baseless claims about the documents investigation

Former President Donald Trump made a wide range of false or unsupported claims in his preliminary response to the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago residence and resort in August. 5 months later, Trump is now attempting to make use of President Joe Biden’s newly revealed document-handling controversy to bolster his public protection – however he’s nonetheless littering his commentary with baseless assertions.

Here’s a truth verify of three of the claims Trump has made within the final week.

Trump put ahead a brand new declare in two posts on his social media platform on Wednesday. He steered that the FBI could have inaccurately described empty folders it seized at Mar-a-Lago – folders he had saved as a “‘cool’ memento” – as precise paperwork.

Trump wrote that, as president, he was introduced with paperwork in folders labeled with phrases like “Labeled” or “Confidential.” He wrote that though he would promptly hand again these paperwork, he saved “lots of” of the empty folders as keepsakes. He wrote that whereas Democrats and the media preserve saying he had a “massive” amount of paperwork, “maybe” the FBI – which he described as “the Gestapo,” the Nazi secret police – wrongly described a few of these empty folders “as a doc.”

Information First: There isn’t any proof that the FBI is wrongly describing empty folders. Actually, the Justice Division’s detailed stock of the gadgets seized at Mar-a-Lago in August – a list submitted in court docket by a senior FBI agent underneath penalty of perjury – explicitly lists “empty folders” individually, distinguishing them from the federal government paperwork that have been recovered. The stock lists 103 authorities paperwork with classification markings, lots of of presidency paperwork with out classification markings, and 88 empty folders – together with 46 empty folders that had “CLASSIFIED” banners on them. Not one of the authorities paperwork is simply an empty folder, in response to the stock.

Trump’s declare that the empty folders in his possession have been mere keepsakes from paperwork he rapidly returned when he was president has not been confirmed or disproven. Even after the search of Mar-a-Lago, the Justice Division continued to clarify that it was not assured that Trump had returned all the authorities paperwork he possessed in his post-presidency – and that it seen the presence of empty folders with labeled banners at Mar-a-Lago as a severe problem in want of investigation. In any US case the place empty folders with labeled banners have been situated, “the FBI could be mainly answerable for investigating what supplies could have as soon as been saved in these folders and whether or not they could have been misplaced or compromised,” the Justice Division mentioned in a court docket submitting in September.

The official stock explains particularly how the empty folders discovered at Mar-a-Lago have been labeled. For instance, the stock says {that a} explicit “field/container” taken from Trump’s workplace included “43 Empty Folders with ‘CLASSIFIED’ Banners” and “28 Empty Folders Labeled ‘Return to Workers Secretary/Army Aide.’” Even the empty folders that have been labeled “CLASSIFIED” weren’t lumped in with the federal government paperwork that had labeled markings.

It’s theoretically attainable that there are errors within the stock; the Justice Division filed a revised model in September that made minor adjustments to the unique stock that was filed in August, which the federal government defined it had wanted to finish in a single enterprise day. However the revised model and the unique model listed the identical variety of authorities paperwork with classification markings, 103, and made solely a small revision to the variety of empty folders with labeled banners, placing it at 46 as a substitute of the unique declare of 48. It’s totally clear that vacant folders aren’t the explanation that the variety of paperwork present in Trump’s possession has been extensively described as “massive.”

Trump has claimed that he was merely abiding by the related regulation, the Presidential Data Act, by partaking in a post-presidency negotiation with the Nationwide Archives and Data Administration about returning paperwork. He mentioned in an interview with right-wing commentator Mark Levin final week that “the Presidential Data Act is – I’m supposed to barter, I’m purported to deal. I gave them plenty of stuff. I used to be prepared to offer them the stuff that they raided.”

In a social media submit on Saturday, Trump wrote, “I used to be President of the U.S. and coated and guarded by the Presidential Data Act, which isn’t legal and permits and encourages you to speak to the NARA, which we have been, very properly,” till the FBI search in August.

Information First: Nothing within the Presidential Data Act means that there must be a negotiation between a former president and the Nationwide Archives and Data Administration over what presidential data must be turned over to NARA and when – a lot much less that there ought to have been a months-long battle after NARA first sought the return of data from Trump in 2021. The regulation merely says that, when a president leaves workplace, NARA assumes management of all presidential data.

Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation at NARA and now a professor on the College of Maryland, mentioned in an electronic mail: “Beneath the Presidential Data Act, at midday on January 20, 2021, all presidential data of the Trump White Home by operation of regulation got here into the authorized custody of the Archivist of america. The Act doesn’t present for or ponder {that a} former President can ‘negotiate’ the phrases of surrendering bodily custody of data which can be correctly owned by the American folks.”

Timothy Naftali, a CNN presidential historian, New York College professor and former director of the Richard Nixon presidential library, mentioned in an electronic mail: “The dedication of what’s a presidential doc, and subsequently public property, within the PRA isn’t topic to negotiation. Congress decided the definitions in 1978. I don’t perceive what the previous president is referring to when he mentions a strategy of negotiation with NARA. Maybe he meant negotiations relating to how supplies within the White Home could be handed over on the finish of an administration. However there isn’t a negotiation over what will get turned over.”

Trump’s rivalry that he was dealing “very properly” with NARA, which he repeated within the interview with Levin final week, is subjective however it’s apparent that this was not some form of harmonious working relationship. The FBI search in August got here greater than a yr after NARA first began attempting to get all presidential data again from Trump, and months after NARA had notified the Justice Division of the presence of things marked as labeled nationwide safety info within the containers of supplies Trump had returned to NARA final January.

Trump continues to drift the concept that the FBI or Justice Division might need planted proof or would possibly proceed to plant proof.

Trump steered on his social media platform in August that it was suspicious that the FBI wouldn’t permit witnesses, akin to his legal professionals, to be within the rooms being searched and “see what they have been doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting.’” In September, Trump said in a tv interview on Fox: “Did they drop something into these information, or did they do it later?”

And in a submit on his social media platform on Wednesday, after outlining his idea concerning the empty folders, Trump wrote, “It’s additionally attainable that the Trump Hating Marxist Thugs in cost will ‘plant’ paperwork whereas they’re in possession of the fabric.”

Information First: There isn’t any proof that anybody has planted something at Mar-a-Lago or amid the gadgets seized at Mar-a-Lago. Regardless of Trump’s personal claims, Trump’s authorized crew has never argued in a court docket submitting that the FBI or Justice Division planted proof – even when it was given an specific alternative to take action. It’s routine, not suspicious, for searches to be performed with out witnesses akin to legal professionals being within the room; legal professionals don’t have a proper to look at. And there’s no signal that anybody concerned in working the investigation is a “Marxist.”

The declare about gadgets presumably having been planted is unattainable to definitively debunk at this level, and it’s clearly unattainable to debunk a declare about what would possibly occur sooner or later. However Trump and his crew have supplied zero proof to assist their insinuations on this topic. Earlier than an appeals court docket stopped a particular grasp overview of the seized gadgets, Trump’s legal professionals resisted an effort by the particular grasp to have them say in a sworn court docket declaration whether or not they believed the official stock included gadgets that weren’t truly seized from Mar-a-Lago – in different phrases, in the event that they believed phony gadgets have been inserted into the proof. A choose then dominated that they didn’t should make this declaration.