Scoop: Boxes of presidential records found at Trump's Florida resort |  Mar-a-Lago. (Shutterstock) | | | Pandora's box(es)?: President Donald Trump improperly removed multiple boxes from the White House that were last month retrieved by the National Archives and Records Administration from his Mar-a-Lago residence because they contained documents and other items that should have been turned over to the office, Jackie, Josh Dawsey, Tom Hamburger, and Ashley Parker report in a scoop this morning. The recovery of the boxes from Trump's Florida resort raises new concerns about whether Trump preserved memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president's official duties, as the Presidential Records Act requires. And it comes as our colleagues revealed that some records from the Archives delivered to the House committee probing the Jan. 6 insurrection were torn apart and pieced back together, mirroring a Trump habit several of his former aides called troubling. Responding to the discovery of the boxes at Mar-a-Lago, Trump advisers denied any nefarious intent and said the boxes contained mementos, gifts, letters from world leaders and other correspondence. The items included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which Trump once described as "love letters," as well as a letter left for him by former President Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with their contents. Dropping the mic: "Things that are national security sensitive or very clearly government documents should have been a part of a first sweep — so the fact that it's been this long doesn't reflect well on [Trump]," said a member of the White House Counsel's Office under Obama. "Why has it taken for a year for these boxes to get there? And are there more boxes?" Why this matters: The Archives has struggled to cope with a president who flouted document retention requirements and frequently ripped up official documents, leaving hundreds of pages taped back together — or some that arrived at the Archives still in pieces. The transfer of these boxes grew out of a discussions between the Archives and the former president's lawyers that began last year, according to one person familiar with the conversations. | - "The only way that a president can really be held accountable long term is to preserve a record about who said what, who did what, what policies were encouraged or adopted, and that is such an important part of the long-term scope of accountability — beyond just elections and campaigns," presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky said.
- From a national security perspective, Chervinsky added, if records and documents are not disclosed, "that could pose a real concern if the next administration is flying blind without that information."
| | "Out of the ordinary": All recent administrations have in some ways flouted the law requiring the preservation of presidential records, most often involving the use of unofficial email and telephone accounts. White House documents from multiple administrations also have been retrieved by the Archives after a president has left office. But personnel familiar with recent administrations said the Trump era stands apart in the scale of the records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. One person familiar with the transfer characterized it as "out of the ordinary. … [the Archives] has never had that kind of volume transfer after the fact like this." How does this affect the Jan. 6 investigation? Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee who did not have knowledge of the Mar-a-Lago find, said the overall records situation reflected the "unconventional nature of how this White House operated." | - "That they didn't follow rules is not a shock," Murphy said. "As for how this development relates to the committee's work, we have different sources and methods for obtaining documents and information that we are seeking."
| | Plus, the Archives has very limited enforcement capabilities. The Presidential Records Act operates on the basis of a "gentlemen's agreement," as one Archives official phrased it. "There is a high bar for bringing such cases," said Charles Tiefer, former House counsel who teaches at the University of Baltimore School of Law. | - Typically, Tiefer said, records preservation proceeds by mutual agreement with the occupant of the White House, staff and archivists. "But if there is willful and unlawful intent" to violate the law, then the picture changes, he said, with penalties of up to three years in jail for willfully concealing or destroying public records.
- "You can't prosecute for just tearing up papers," he said of Trump. "You would have to show him being highly selective and have evidence that he wanted to behave unlawfully."
- Neither Trump nor the Archives responded to requests for comment on the Mar-a-Lago box haul.
| | |  | At the White House | | Germany's Scholz comes to Washington |  Newly elected German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, gave flowers to former Chancellor Angela Merkel during a handover ceremony in the chancellery in Berlin, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021. (Photo/Markus Schreiber) | | | Happening today: President Biden will meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz this afternoon on Scholz's first trip to Washington since he succeeded Angela Merkel in December. | | Biden and Scholz are expected to discuss sanctions that the U.S., Germany and other NATO countries would impose on Russia if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to invade Ukraine, as well as other matters such as China and the Balkans, according to a senior administration official. Scholz's views on Ukraine are considered broadly similar to Merkel's, according to several experts on German-American relations. But he doesn't have the years of experience dealing with Moscow and Washington that his predecessor did. Over 16 years, Merkel dealt with every U.S. president since George W. Bush. She and Putin used to speak every week, without the need for translators; they each speak the other's language. One point of tension between Biden and Scholz: Nord Stream 2, the completed-but-not-operational natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany that Republicans — as well as a few Democrats — have pushed the administration to sanction. Biden has resisted the calls for immediate sanctions but has vowed to block its completion if Putin attacks Ukraine. The senior administration official said on Sunday that "if Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward," but Scholz himself was much less emphatic in an interview on Friday with our colleague Souad Mekhennet. "We are ready to take together with our allies all necessary steps," Scholz said, adding that "all options are on the table." Scholz faces his own domestic political pressure on Nord Stream as his government moves to phase out coal, which provides more than a quarter of the Germany's electricity. "You can't build solar and wind fast enough to replace that," said Jeff Rathke, the president of Johns Hopkins University's American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. "So there is the need in the medium term for more natural gas to generate electricity. That is what makes this a real crunch point for Germany, which has some of the highest electricity prices in Europe." But there's also a deeper strain of empathy for Russia in Germany, rooted partly in the cultural ties between the former East Germany and the Soviet Union, said John Emerson, who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during the Obama administration. "There's definitely a sense of some in Germany that it's not in Germany's national interest, being as close to Russia as they are, to create the contentious kind of relationship with Russia that perhaps has developed in the United States over the years," he said. | | |  | The campaign | | Florida Republicans' new abortion law bill drawing criticism from advocates on both sides |  People hold placards as they protest against Florida's 15-week abortion ban in Coral Gables, Florida, on January 21, 2022. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images) | | | All eyes on the Sunshine State: "It took just one day after Texas enacted its controversial 'heartbeat bill,' banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, for a top Florida Republican to endorse passing the same law in his state — with the leader of the state senate declaring that a copycat measure was 'something we're already working on,'" our colleague Caroline Kitchener reports. "But by the time the measure was introduced in September, drawing national headlines, Florida GOP leaders effectively shrugged it off." | - "Now, four months later, Florida Republicans have coalesced around a bill they have come to describe as 'very reasonable' and 'generous' — a 15-week ban modeled after the Mississippi law currently before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case that will determine the future of Roe v. Wade."
- "It's an approach, they say, that would prevent only a fraction of the more than 70,000 abortions performed in Florida each year, the vast majority of which take place in the first trimester."
- "The momentum behind the 15-week ban in Florida offers a glimpse into what activists on both sides say is an emerging strategy in some GOP-led legislatures to acclimate voters to a post-Roe world."
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