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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(135,732 posts)
Tue Feb 15, 2022, 04:31 PM Feb 2022

Trump's stash of documents shows 'fragile' historical record

WASHINGTON (AP) — As president, Donald Trump never liked to leave a paper trail. He avoided email, admonished aides to stop taking notes during meetings and ripped up documents when he was finished with them.

But Trump was unwilling to part with some of his administration's records when he left the White House last year, whisking them away to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Although more than a dozen boxes have since been returned to the government, the discovery alarmed archivists and historians who were already skeptical of Trump’s commitment to transparency.

For them, the episode is not just a story about a presidential packrat or a sloppy filing system, but an example of how fragments of American history are at risk of being lost. Destroying or concealing documents, they said, could prevent future generations from understanding how important decisions were made.

“My first reaction was words you’re probably not allowed to print," said Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian. Academics rely on official records to paint a complete picture of every administration, and she said revelations about the documents at Mar-a-Lago were a reminder of "how fragile that process can be if people do not follow the rules.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-stash-documents-shows-fragile-172919321.html

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Trump's stash of documents shows 'fragile' historical record (Original Post) Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Feb 2022 OP
Trump's term was The Lost Years in more than one sense. lagomorph777 Feb 2022 #1
Ever since his "missing" record for his meeting with Putin in the early days, Claustrum Feb 2022 #3
15 boxes left and 12 came back. SoonerPride Feb 2022 #2
Or shipped them to Pyongyang, Moscow, and Beijing. lagomorph777 Feb 2022 #4

lagomorph777

(30,613 posts)
1. Trump's term was The Lost Years in more than one sense.
Tue Feb 15, 2022, 04:36 PM
Feb 2022

We lost a lot of time that could have been used to move the country forward (actually, we lost a lot of ground).

And we are now realizing that the inner workings of his corrupt machine will never be known in detail. This makes it more difficult to craft solutions to hobble the next Trump.

Claustrum

(5,058 posts)
3. Ever since his "missing" record for his meeting with Putin in the early days,
Tue Feb 15, 2022, 04:45 PM
Feb 2022

I knew they wouldn't follow normal protocols for keeping any record. If you don't record anything, you can't really say they specifically miss the record for his wrongdoing.

SoonerPride

(12,286 posts)
2. 15 boxes left and 12 came back.
Tue Feb 15, 2022, 04:37 PM
Feb 2022

We still haven't retrieved all the classified intel and documents.

Will we ever?

Doubtful.

I'm sure he ate them by now.

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