How Democrats plan to stop Trump from hiding documents if Biden wins

• Top Democrats fear that President Donald Trump and his allies will disrupt documents, delete data and email, and refuse to cooperate with an incoming transitional team if Joe Biden wins the White House.

• “When there is a transition – and I pray to God that there is this year – it’s hard to see it going smoothly,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who chairs a House Oversight panel on government operations.
• Earlier this month, the Trump administration sent a report to congressional watchdogs showing how it is preparing for a possible transfer of government in January. But Democrats are skeptical.
• “We are not dealing here with the most law-abiding administration,” said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. “These are people who have no problem suppressing and destroying evidence.”
• Visit the Business Insider website for more stories.

Top Democratic watchdogs in Congress fear that President Donald Trump, his staff and cabinet officials could hold critical documents, delete emails and refuse to work with an incoming transitional team if Joe Biden wins the White House in November.

That’s all illegal, but senior Democrats have seen the president and his team reject their attempts to oversee Congress several times, warning that an outgoing Trump administration violates the laws requiring the preservation of government documents, can retire.

Democrats have already given an example of what they are afraid of coming: The White House has so far failed to respond to numerous document requests and prevented administration officials from testifying before Congress on controversial issues. Critics of Trump on Capitol Hill say the administration’s stonewalling – the problem was a driving force behind one of the two articles of resignation against Trump passed by the House of Representatives last December – is unusual.

“When there is a transition – and I pray to God that there is this year – it’s hard to see it going smoothly,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who chairs a House Oversight panel on government operations.

The presidential election is still three months away, but Democrats already want to send clear warnings to Trump and his allies that anyone who illegally destroys records during a presidential transition can be prosecuted. In the long run, they are preparing to launch a major effort to clean up the executive branch.

“Trump has proven ‘if there’s a hole in the net, I’ll drive right through,'” Connolly said.

The 1963 Presidential Transitional Law establishes the route map for the transfer of power from one administration to another, and federal law also makes it illegal to destroy certain government documents. Earlier this month, the Trump administration sent a report to congressional watchdogs indicating that it was preparing for a possible transfer of government in January.

David Marchick, director of the Center for Presidential Transition at the good-government advocacy group, the Partnership for Public Service, told Insider earlier this month that those documents show the Trump administration is taking the implementation of transitional laws seriously.

But Connolly and two of the other top Democrats in the House oversight and reform committee told Insider they feared the administration could break the law.

“I am particularly concerned about whether the White House is taking appropriate steps to preserve the records of President Trump, Vice President Pence, and senior White House staffers and transfer those records to the National Archives and Records Administration,” “Presiding Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, said in a statement.

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

‘We are not dealing here with the most law-abiding administration’

Several House Democrats share concerns that documents will not be preserved, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who heads a supervisory committee on civil rights and civil liberties.

“We are not dealing here with the most law-abiding administration,” Raskin said. “These are people who have no problem suppressing and destroying evidence, so we need to figure out a way to free up the image so that documents are not shredded on the way to the door.”

On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump condemned Hillary Clinton for using a private email server during her time as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. But Trump administration officials – including advisers Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner – have since come under fire for using personal email accounts and messaging services like WhatsApp for government business.

Republicans and Democrats alike on the House oversight panel warned the Trump administration in early 2017 that it will closely monitor compliance with laws that require the preservation of presidential records and other federal records.

“In July 2019, the commission issued a subpoena for emails and texts sent or received by senior White House officials regarding personal accounts related to official matters and the White House has refused to comply,” he said. told Maloney to Insider.

A senior Trump administration official told Insider in an email that it was “beyond laughter that these Democrats who defended Hillary Clinton’s destruction of public records and use of a private server for classified information would have been embarrassed. to raise any concerns about the maintenance of records. “

Government officials have previously run into problems with the removal of records during the declining days of a presidency.

In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency was held in contempt for violating a court order after officials destroyed hard drives and deleted emails following the end of the Clinton administration, The Washington Post reported at the time. The EPA had to pay for legal bills, but former Clinton officials were not personally held in contempt.

Outgoing administrations have also been involved in a wide range of pranks – such as gluing desktops and wiping W keys off White House keyboards before President George W. Bush’s team arrived after the bitterly contested presidential election in 2000. .

But Trump’s critics warn that transition issues could be more serious and widespread under the watchful eye of a president who was accused by the House of Representatives last year of accusing him of obstructing Congress and abusing his power. His refusal to cooperate with Congress was one of the reasons why the Second Chamber voted to remove him from office; the other reason was based on allegations that the president sought help from the Ukrainian government to help his reelection in November.

“I would be concerned about retaining documents that have involved policies over this four-year period, and email chains and internal communications,” Connolly said. “All that potential is in jeopardy.”

House Democrats need to send a clear signal, Connolly added, that “if we find violations of the law, people will be prosecuted whether they are in office or out of office, they will be held accountable. I think this is an important message is. ”

Expect Republican Republicans to continue their strong defense of Trump, even if he is no longer in office in January.

“House Democrats have no governing agenda outside focused on President Trump out of personal contempt for him and his supporters,” the Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the top Republican on the oversight panel. “We saw this sad reality on full display when they immediately tried to impeach him while taking the majority.”

“Trump has exposed the weaknesses”

In addition to a presidential transition – if there is one later this year – Congress’s Democrats want to increase their power in the wake of Trump’s predictive opposition.

It’s unclear how much appetite a Biden team would have to sign legislation aimed at purge in the power of the executive branch, but it would undoubtedly have to do with broad pressure from Democratic lawmakers and many to the left to ensure that future presidents can not similarly visit under supervision.

“I do not think we have ever had a situation like this where the current administration has basically stonewalled all congressional oversight and engaged in flagrant abuse of power and corrupt practices,” said Kurt Bardella, who was an aide. for former House Oversight chairman Darrell Issa, a Republican in California.

Bardella, now a Democrat, is a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, a political action committee led by current and former Republicans who oppose Trump.

The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank based in Washington, published a report this month urging the next administration to investigate Trump and his team.

“Once the Trump administration ends, there may be concerns about good faith that tackling the administration’s abuse will be too divisive, appoint a bad president, or lead to political pushback from supporters of the administration, “the report said. “But the lesson of the past four years is clear: the lack of accountability is treated as a license to escalate abuse of power.”

On Capitol Hill, Connolly said Democrats were preparing for legislation that would address the Trump administration’s behavior, including ignoring statements and defeating Congress.

During Trump’s hearing session, the White House issued a blanket denial of cooperation, ignoring statements for documents and testimony.

The issue is much broader, according to watchdogs.

House of Natural Resources President Raúl Grijalva complained at a hearing last September that his commission had made more than 25 formal requests for information or documents from the Home Office.

“So far, we have only received complete or almost complete answers to three of them,” he said. “Fourteen of those requests – well over half – received no substantive response at all.”

In one case, Interior sent the commission a 12,000-page printout of an empty and “totally useless” Excel spreadsheet, Grijalva said. The department responded to another document request with 100 pages of unconscious symbols. A Home Office official told the commission that those useless and blank pages had been removed to prevent the appearance of the department withholding information.

Lawmakers must fight back, Connolly said, adding that it otherwise risks “a permanent weakening of our oversight capabilities” both in the courts and in the ability of Congress to uphold its statements.

“No one who becomes president likes congressional restrictions on executive power, but we’re coming out of a real four years of trauma here and we need to respond to that,” Connolly said. “We need to make rules for the worst case and Trump has exposed the weaknesses in the whole system and we need to fix it.”