| Happy FOIA Friday. We’re just three days away from Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration and the start of his second administration. After November’s election I filed FOIA requests with dozens of federal agencies for their presidential transition briefing materials, which all agencies are required to prepare for an incoming administration. Right before FOIA Files went on hiatus over the holidays, the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, sent me its presidential transition briefing book. As I was reading through the 73 pages this week it got me thinking: NARA is one of the most vulnerable government agencies in terms of being targeted by Trump for retaliation. If you’re not already getting FOIA Files in your inbox, sign up here. Trump has been clear that he intends to go after his perceived political enemies. At last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” One group in his crosshairs: Federal employees. Trump has vowed to purge civil servants, who he’s accused of being agents of the “deep state,” and replace them with those considered loyal to his agenda. Trump has already nominated a slew of people to cabinet level positions who could help him slash the federal workforce, perhaps with an eye not only toward government efficiency, but payback. No agency is considered safe, but there is perhaps none with a bigger target on its back than NARA. The once sleepy agency staffed with librarians and archivists became Trump’s nemesis after it sparked the sprawling criminal investigation related to top secret documents Trump stored at Mar-a-Lago. An obligation to preserve | Before I go deeper into the briefing book, I want to explain how Trump’s fraught relationship with NARA began, which I’ve documented through dozens of FOIA requests and lawsuits over the past eight years. (Along the way, I also dug into President Joe Biden's and President Barack Obama’s failure to comply with the law.) A little table setting. NARA’s work is neither controversial nor partisan, despite Trump’s insistence that it is a “very radical left group.” NARA is tasked with archiving historical documents, granting the public access to them, and ensuring that the White House and federal agencies adhere to record preservation laws. Under the 1978 Presidential Records Act, records created or received by a president as part of their constitutional, statutory, or ceremonial duties are the property of the US government. When a president’s term is over, those records are to be handed over to NARA for management and storage. Trump’s ire toward NARA dates to the earliest days of his first term. It started on February 2, 2017, when two of NARA’s top officials briefed the Trump White House about compliance with the Presidential Records act.  The agenda for the February 2, 2017 briefing NARA held for the Trump White House Three weeks later, Stefan Passantino, the White House counsel for compliance and ethics, circulated a memo reminding Trump’s White House lawyers and other personnel of their “obligations to preserve and maintain records as required by the Presidential Records Act.” Just a month into his first term, rumors swirled that Trump had destroyed presidential records that should have been preserved under the law. In March 2017, Democratic Senators Claire McCaskill and Tom Carper wrote to David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, asking whether he was aware of any efforts by the Trump White House to skirt the Presidential Records Act. Ferriero would only say that NARA briefed the White House on the law. In October 2017, Passantino emailed White House officials again. He instructed them to “re-familiarize yourself with the attached guidance” about the Presidential Records Act. “Failure to abide by these requirements may lead to administrative penalties. The willful destruction or concealment of federal records is a federal crime," Passantino wrote. Torn, shredded and flushed | Then in June 2018 Politico published an explosive story. “Meet the guys who tape Trump’s papers back together,” was the headline. It led with a career government employee who said he spent the first five months of Trump’s presidency taping back together presidential documents Trump tore up. A few years ago, NARA sent me its internal correspondence related to the Politico scoop. The emails and chat logs are partially redacted. But it’s still a pretty good read on how the agency responded to the allegations leveled against Trump, which basically consisted of “do you need more training?” Trump also allegedly flushed presidential papers down the toilet in the White House residence, which wasn’t discovered until plumbers were called to fix the clogged toilets. (I sued the FBI for documents about the flushed papers. I’m eventually going to frame the FBI’s response and hang it on my wall: The bureau said it will neither confirm nor deny it has documents about the flushed documents, also known as a GLOMAR. My attorneys are now battling out the FBI’s position in court.) It wasn’t just shredded papers though. Ferriero, the archivist, told lawmakers in 2022 that NARA learned the Trump White House didn’t preserve “certain social media records” that were required under the Presidential Records Act and “some White House staff conducted official business using non-official electronic messaging accounts that were not copied or forwarded into their official electronic messaging accounts,” as required under the law. The NARA skirmish boiled over after Trump left the White House in 2021 with records that should have been turned over in accordance with the law. The agency spent a year trying to get Trump to return 14 boxes of documents he took to his Palm Beach residence in Florida. When the agency’s archivists finally got the boxes back, they found classified records in them, prompting NARA to refer the matter to the Department of Justice. That sparked a historic criminal investigation by the Special Counsel Jack Smith, the FBI’s unprecedented search of Mar-a-Lago, the discovery of even more classified documents, and the first ever indictment and prosecution of a former president. That all came to a spectacular screeching halt. After Trump’s November win, Jack Smith dropped the case. Back to the transition documents. All I can say is, it looks like NARA has a long road ahead under a second Trump administration. The briefing book I obtained goes into detail about NARA’s operations, budget, ongoing work and challenges the agency is struggling to tackle. It paints a dire picture for the future of America’s historical records. “Maintaining a portfolio of buildings, information technology infrastructure, and staff necessary to preserve and provide public access to over 13 billion pages of analog (or paper) records is a struggle for NARA,” the agency’s transition briefing book says. “If NARA cannot build the necessary, secure infrastructure to capture and preserve records, there is no alternative or back-up plan to ensure that the federal government will not lose these records permanently due to format obsolescence.” Unfortunately for NARA, that means the agency now finds itself in the unenviable position of having to go hat in hand to a Republican-controlled, Trump-backed Congress to overhaul its record keeping infrastructure and reduce a massive backlog of FOIA requests. Still, I couldn’t help but laugh when I got to page 44. It was titled, “Potential Briefings on NARA Programs and Initiatives.” “Assistance with the Presidential Records Act” topped the list. If this document was written specifically for Trump and his transition team I’d say NARA was trolling the president-elect. I can’t imagine that Trump or his White House staffers are interested in a briefing from NARA on the Presidential Records Act. But leaving that aside, it raises so many questions. How will Trump treat the Presidential Records Act this time around? Will he destroy presidential records as he was accused of doing in the past? Will he turn them over to NARA when he leaves the White House? I sent Trump’s transition team a bunch of questions hoping they would provide some answers. But I never received a response. I also asked the agency how it will deal with a second Trump administration. After all, its employees are already spooked since receiving threats in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago search, documents I obtained via FOIA show. NARA sent me a statement. It said, NARA “has no authority to enforce records management within the White House” but can offer “our views on the proposed disposal of Presidential records in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.” NARA also said that Colleen Shogan, the Archivist of the United States, has a “strong working relationship with President Trump and his team.” “We look forward to continuing that relationship with the new administration as we move forward into a digital future,” the statement said. Last week, Trump made an appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. Hewitt needled Trump about NARA and Shogan, who was appointed by Biden in 2023 and is the first woman to lead the agency. “You know, all of your problems in Florida at Mar-A-Lago started because the Archivist complained to the DOJ, because he hated you. Now the Archivist who’s there now is not the one who screwed you over, but it’s a new Archivist,” Hewitt said. “Are you going to replace this Archivist and get someone who actually protects the legacy of the United States and doesn’t persecute political appointments?” Shogan is a historian. She had nothing to do with the presidential records case. She wasn’t even working at NARA when the case blew up. But for Trump, Shogan’s still a target. “Well, I think I can tell you that we will get somebody, yes, I’ll have, let me just put it, yeah, we will have a new Archivist,” Trump said. FOIA Files is taking a break next week so I can review a cache of records the FBI and CIA sent me over the holidays. The CIA spent $44 on postage. Government efficiency anyone?  Thanks, Santa! Got a tip for a document you think I should request via FOIA? Send me an email: jleopold15@bloomberg.net or send me a message on Signal: +1-917-623-1908 | 
