DOJ rebuffs Democrats' request for inventory of Trump's boxes [View all]

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

The Justice Department this week rebuffed a request from the House Oversight Committee for more details about the 15 boxes of White House records that former president Donald Trump improperly removed to Mar-a-Lago, hinting in a letter that an ongoing investigation prevents the department from doing so.

In the letter addressed to Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), and reviewed by The Washington Post, acting assistant attorney general Peter Hyun writes that after the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) referred “concerns about whether such materials had been properly handled” to the Justice Department earlier this year, officials asked the archives not to share information related to the records taken to Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Fla.

The Post reported last week that the Justice Department has begun taking steps to investigate the former president’s removal of the records, some of which were classified and labeled “top secret.” Maloney had accused the department of obstructing her committee’s investigation by preventing NARA’s from handing over a detailed inventory of the boxes’ contents.
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In the letter sent this week, Hyun writes that while the Justice Department has “great respect” for the committee’s oversight authority, “the Department previously asked NARA not to share or otherwise disclose to others information relating to this matter in order to protect the integrity of our ongoing work.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/12/trump-boxes-records-top-secret-doj