There is a question about why Donald Trump kept reams of government documents at his Mar-a-Lago home.
Few answers have been elicited so far. The Department of Justice wrote in a court filing last week that a lawyer for Trump didn't offer an explanation as to why boxes of government records were being kept at the former president's estate. Advisers say it's rarely that Trump invokes his library.
He said the records from Mar-a-Lago would be included in a future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum. According to the Justice Department's more detailed inventory of the documents, Trump had held on to more than 10,000 government records. The former National Archives and Records Administration officials said that the material belonged to the U.S. government and should have been turned over immediately after he left office.
Six past and present advisers say that the library has been more than an unimportant part of Trumpworld. Trump doesn't want to leave an impression that his focus has shifted to his legacy. It would be a sign that his career in politics was over if he built a library now.
Advisers say that discussions about a Trump library have been going on for a long time. The ex-adviser said he looked at Florida property maps in the White House dining room. The Palm Beach area is home to Mar-a-Lago. One person close to him said that there was a joke about putting the library in the island that Trump entertained buying midway through his term.
A person who spoke to Trump about a library said he didn't seem interested. He wasn't saying, "I gotta get my library going" He would like to be president again.
The person who spoke on condition of anonymity said that presidential libraries are for ex-presidents. He is a president in the near future. He is returning.
A spokesman for the president did not reply to a question about the library. Chris Kise, an attorney for the Trump Organization, told a court last week that there was no reason for a former president to have records from his time in office. He said that the mix of material found at Mar-a-Lago is what you would expect if you looked through a bunch of boxes. All sorts of things are contained in it.
If Trump wanted to route the records to a library, he went about it the wrong way.
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 requires presidents to give their records back to the U.S. government when they leave office. He could have gone to the National Archives after his library was up and running to get a loan of documents he wanted to display. The speeches and gifts that former President Barack Obama received over his two terms will be displayed in his presidential library.
Robert Clark worked at the Franklin D. Roosevelt library in New York.
There is something going on. The library needs to be built before he can store the stuff in his garage. Clark said that it wasn't how it worked.
A former senior White House official said that one of Trump's concerns was that the library would show material that would make him look bad. The source said that he wanted some control over the contents of the library.
A museum open to the public is one of the main components of a modern presidential library. Ex-presidents aren't supposed to be in charge of the library's records.
Museums are not the same as other cases. They have become shrines to the former president. A wax figure of Trump was going to be donated to a library, according to a former Trump representative. One of the people close to him said that Trump advisers are looking at the possibility of acquiring and displaying Air Force One once it is replaced with a new model.
A former senior adviser to five Republican presidential campaigns said he was not sure what a Trump library would contain. You can only have a limited number of copies of the book.
In order to control his image, Trump wouldn't be the only one.
One of the knocks on the presidential library system is that it is difficult to get critical materials into the museum.
Most of his predecessors in the modern era willingly parted with their records even when they had a choice to keep them.
Ronald Reagan became the first ex-president to have his papers taken over by the U.S. government. Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower all gave their records to the National Archives. Congress passed a law in 1974 that prevented Nixon from destroying the tapes that he made in office.
Clark said that Nixon didn't want to follow precedent. We are in a crossroads moment right now.
It is not certain that Trump could raise the money to build a library. The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago is expected to bring in more than $830 million, and Obama started raising money before he left office. It's difficult for ex-presidents to raise money for a library. They can't give donors ambassadorships and state dinner invitations because they're out of power Trump focused on his re- election campaign.
Advisers contemplated on occasion if the price tag had risen so high that Obama might be the last library built. A person close to Trump suggested he could cut the cost if he were to partner with a university.
The end product would be a celebration of Trump's record if he follows through on his promises.
Historians worry about self-veneration. It is possible that records in Trump's care could be lost. The National Archives was concerned about the condition of the documents. The FBI affidavit used to search Trump's Mar-a-Lago home shows that there were a lot of classified records in the 15 boxes that Trump handed over. The desk drawer in which the classified material was found was occupied by Trump's passport.
There is a question of whether the United States will leave gaps in the historical record that warp the public's understanding of Trump's presidency.
The public's ability to know the truth about his administration was struck directly by President Trump's decision to take material with him.
He said that the republic depended on transparency. By any stretch, it is not perfect. It is a goal we attempt to achieve.
The article was first published on NBC News.
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