It was just a week ago I wrote yet another critical post on Trump. I usually promise myself it'll be the last one for a while, To be honest, though, I'm not surprised to hear that that Trump ripped up, burned and/or flushed documents to be archived under the Ptesidential Records Act, not to mention NARA had to retrieve several boxes from Trump's Florida estate, including reportedly some documents marked as classified. (The National Archives holds a special place in my heart; I worked in College Park as a federal contractor my first gig moving to Maryland,)
To say that Trump sees himself to be above the law and the Constitution hardly seems necessary. This is a guy who publicly claimed "total authority". Transparency is a necessary construct underlying the principles of our democratic republic; it's why we often see widespread use of bodycams by police, which provides a means of nonrepudiation of basic facts of an encounter in contention. It's the raison d'être behind the freedom of the press.
There are obvious reasons why we want to document a President's records, including continuity of foreign relations. And it's been taken for granted for granted for much of our history with Presidential libraries since FDR. Of course, much of this was done by tradition/custom and habits until Richard Nixon's infamous tapes (and 18.5 minute gap) and related SCOTUS-decided custody battle. This led to the above-cited Presidential Records Act. Trump's violations are unprecedented over the subsequent nearly 5 decades. White House staffers reportedly had to reassemble documents Trump ripped to pieces.
Partisan Dem Twitter users with Trump Derangement Syndrome have personally gone after Trump for over 6 years, with hundreds if not thousands demanding prosecution of Trump, upset that AG Garland hasn't already filed charges. (That's a slippery slope which can and will be a double-edged sword.) In one sense, Dems have been holding a grudge over Trump's hypocritical political attacks over Hillary Clinton's email scandal, which many attribute to Clinton's' 2016 election loss given Comey's late campaign actions. In particular, there were reports of missing emails and some classified material among the emails, which clearly parallel destroyed documents and classified information in Trump's possession. Both Clinton and Trump violated government policy; it was against State Department policy for Clinton to use a personal email account to conduct government business. The government implements security and backups for emails. Clinton's private email server could have been hacked. and national secrets exposed to nefarious interests. The nature and extent of security violations on Trump's part are not clear; I don't know where Trump stored government records, his security vetting of residential staff, etc. I don't know what documents he allegedly destroyed or his motive in destroying any. (In fact, I believe a President can declassify information.)
I don't think there are relevant stipulated sanctions over compromises to retention of Presidential records. Congress may need to reform the act.
Does that mean Trump should get away with it? No; he certainly violated his Presidential oath. He persisted in his errors even when he was told what he was doing violated the retention law. Ultimately, the American people have to hold him responsible.
