“We do know that we do not have custody of everything we should,” the acting US Archivist Debra Steidel Wall said in a letter to Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, ABC News reported Saturday.
The letter noted that the Archives knows they are missing records due to public reporting of communications sent or received by Administration officials. Many of these communications were done through personal accounts using third-party messaging apps, some of which erase messages after a set period of time, meaning those records may not be recoverable. Steidel said the Archives “would consult with the Department of Justice” on whether “to initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed.”
“Former President Trump and his senior staff have shown an utter disregard for the rule of law and our national security by failing to return presidential records as the law requires,” Maloney said. “I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure that all presidential records from the Trump White House are returned to the custody of the government and to make sure these abuses never happen again.”