| Aloha, Early Birds. Wishing you luck, love, and health this Chinese New Year 🐅🏮 Thanks for waking up with us – see you on Wednesday. | | |  | On the Hill | | Jan. 6 committee is following Trump's ripped up paper trail |  President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) | | | Piecing things together: When the National Archives and Records Administration handed over a trove of documents to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, some of the Trump White House records were ripped up and then taped back together, according to three people familiar with the records, Jackie, Josh Dawsey, Amy Gardner and Tom Hamburger scooped Monday night. Former president Donald Trump was known inside the White House for his unusual and potentially unlawful habit of tearing presidential records into shreds and tossing them on the floor — creating a headache for records management analysts who meticulously used Scotch tape to piece together fragments of paper that were sometimes as small as confetti, as Annie Karni reported for Politico in 2018. | - #TBT: "Solomon Lartey spent the first five months of the Trump administration working in the Old Executive Office Building, standing over a desk with scraps of paper spread out in front of him. Lartey, who earned an annual salary of $65,969 as a records management analyst, was a career government official with close to 30 years under his belt," Karni wrote. "But he had never seen anything like this in any previous administration he had worked for. He had never had to tape the president's papers back together again."
| | But despite the Presidential Records Act — which requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president's official duties — the former president's shredding practices apparently continued well into the latter stages of his presidency. The National Archives on Monday took the unusual step of confirming the habit, saying in a statement that records turned over from the Trump White House "included paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump." The statement was a response to a question from The Washington Post about whether some Jan. 6 related records were ripped up and taped back together. And perhaps even more newsworthy, the Archives told The Post that some of the documents turned over by the White House had not been reconstructed at all, suggesting that some of the documents could be ripped beyond repair. | - In its statement, the Archives said that "White House records management officials during the Trump Administration recovered and taped together some of the torn-up records. These were turned over to the National Archives at the end of the Trump Administration, along with a number of torn-up records that had not been reconstructed by the White House. The Presidential Records Act requires that all records created by presidents be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations."
| | The potential legal ramifications: "So destroying them could be a crime under several statutes that make it a crime to destroy government property if that was the intent of the defendant," Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and constitutional scholar, told Tom. "A president does not own the records generated by his own administration. The definition of presidential records is broad. Trump's own notes to himself could qualify and destroying them could be the criminal destruction of government property." It's unclear what documents delivered to the Jan. 6 committee were damaged and the committee has not yet officially detailed what's in the tranche of records. But legal records reviewed by Tom indicate the documents over which Trump sought to assert privilege included presidential diaries, schedules, appointment information, handwritten notes concerning the events of Jan. 6 from White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, speeches, remarks, and more. The archivist is set to hand over more documents in the weeks and months to come. Trump also sought to assert privilege over the below documents, according to legal records, per Tom's reporting: | - Thirty pages of daily presidential diaries, schedules, appointment information showing visitors to the White House, activity logs, call logs, and switchboard checklists showing calls to the president and vice president, all specifically for or encompassing Jan. 6
- Three handwritten notes concerning the events of Jan. 6 from Meadows's files
- Thirteen pages of speeches, remarks and correspondence surrounding Jan. 6
- More than 600 pages of proposed talking points for the press secretary, interspersed with a relatively small number of related statements and documents, principally relating to allegations of voter fraud, election security, and other topics concerning the 2020 election
- Ten pages of draft text of a presidential speech for the Jan. 6 "Save America March"
- Two pages of material from Meadows's files listing potential or scheduled briefings and telephone calls concerning the Jan. 6 certification and other election issues
- Four pages of a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity
- A draft proclamation honoring deceased Capitol Police officers Brian D. Sicknick and Howard Liebengood
- Four pages from the records of Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin, including a memo apparently originating outside the White House about a potential lawsuit against several states that Joe Biden won
- Three pages of talking points on alleged election irregularities in Michigan
- Three pages containing presidential findings about the security of the 2020 election and ordering various actions
| | .@USNatArchives in a rare statement about Trump W.H. records turned over to the Jan. 6 committee | "White House records management officials during the Trump Administration recovered and taped together some of the torn-up records. These were turned over to the National Archives at the end of the Trump Administration." | | | | | | | Trump asked if DHS could 'take control' of 2020 voting machines |  Former President Donald Trump reacts to the crowd as he takes the stage while tossing hats to the crowd during a campaign stop, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2020, at the Butler County Regional Airport in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) | | | In related Jan. 6 news: "Six weeks after Election Day, with his hold on power slipping, President Donald J. Trump directed his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to make a remarkable call. Mr. Trump wanted him to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it could legally take control of voting machines in key swing states, three people familiar with the matter said," the New York Times's Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, Michael Schmidt and Luke Broadwater report. | - "Mr. Giuliani did so, calling the department's acting deputy secretary, who said he lacked the authority to audit or impound the machines. Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Giuliani to make that inquiry after rejecting a separate effort by his outside advisers to have the Pentagon take control of the machines. And the outreach to the Department of Homeland Security came not long after Mr. Trump, in an Oval Office meeting with Attorney General William P. Barr, raised the possibility of whether the Justice Department could seize the machines, a previously undisclosed suggestion that Mr. Barr immediately shot down."
- Bottom line: "The new accounts show that Mr. Trump was more directly involved than previously known in exploring proposals to use his national security agencies to seize voting machines as he grasped unsuccessfully for evidence of fraud that would help him reverse his defeat in the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the episodes."
| | |  | The campaign | | Trump kicked off 2022 with $122 million in the bank |  Former President Trump speaks at the "Save America Rally" in Conroe, Texas, Saturday, January 29, 2022, his first big MAGA rally in Texas since 2019.(Photo by Michael Stravato/For The Washington Post) | | | Trump's haul: Trump's political operation started the year with $122 million in cash as he hints at running for president again, our colleagues Isaac Stanley-Becker and Anu Narayanswamy report. "He is stockpiling money rather than spending it, raising $51 million from July through December of last year while dispensing a fraction of that in the same period, federal filings made public on Monday show." | - As the New York Times's Shane Goldmacher points out, Trump's operation now has "more than double the cash on hand of the Republican National Committee."
- "Despite seeking to influence races nationwide with high-profile endorsements, he doled out less than $1.5 million from his main political action committee to favored causes and candidates in the second half of 2021. That included $1 million to the Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit where Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, serves as a senior partner," per Isaac and Anu.
| | A super PAC allied with Trump, Make America Great Again, Again! Inc., meanwhile brought in another $10 million, including $5.7 million that was transferred from another pro-Trump super PAC. Make American Great Again, Again! had $9.5 million in cash on hand. The super PAC's top donors were Texas financier Robert Marling Jr.'s firm, Tranquil Path Investment Ltd., and an unidentified limited-liability company, ML Organization LLC, each of which contributed $500,000. Other major contributors included the Las Vegas businessman Don Ahern, the private equity executive Saul Fox, the Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks, the author Leslie Liautaud, the Florida businessman Jose Fanjul, the waste collection tycoon Anthony Lomangino, Texas state Rep. D. Mayes Middleton II and the Texas businessman Kenny Troutt, among others. Each of them gave $250,000. Yang gang: Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang's new political party, Forward Party, reported raising about $969,000 since Yang set it up in September. Nearly $500,000 of the party's funds came from a single donor, Keith Tom, a San Francisco software developer. | | |  | On K Street | | House appropriations staffer Dena Baron Smith joins Invariant | | New hire: The lobbying firm Invariant has hired Dena Baron Smith, who's spent more than two decades as a staffer for the House Appropriation Committee. She was most recently the Republican clerk for the subcommittee on homeland security. She plans to register as a lobbyist, according to the firm. | | |  | The Data | | | The winners of the 2022 money race, visualized: "Major Republican organizations focused on winning back control of the House and the Senate ended last year with significantly more money than their Democratic counterparts, a reversal of past fortunes that suggests shifting momentum ahead of the midterm elections," our colleagues Michael Scherer and Isaac Stanley-Becker report. | - "The Republican Party's campaign committees for the House and the Senate, along with the super PACs affiliated with Republican House and Senate leadership, reported nearly $220 million in combined cash on hand on Dec. 31. By contrast, the corresponding Democratic organizations reported $176 million in cash reserves."
| | |  | The Media | | | |  | Viral | | | Five letter word for "acquisition" |  | | | | |
