It has recently been revealed that former President Trump destroyed documents while he was President by ripping them up, eating scraps and flushing them down the toilet. So habitual was this practice that aides followed behind him gathering up the torn papers and taping them back together. They did this because destroying documents is against the law, specifically the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

This Act was passed to prevent presidents from destroying evidence of crimes. It was passed after President Nixon’s 18 minutes of tape disappeared and alerted people to the possible criminal mind set of future presidents. The Act itself goes into great detail about the handling and distribution of official records.

It begins by asserting public ownership of presidential papers while giving the incumbent president responsibility for those records. This is important because it denies the president discretion about the maintenance of the records while imposing a legal liability for their destruction.

There is no question that former President Trump mutilated public records, some of them marked “classified.” The records have been recovered by the National Archives and they have been taped back together. Who knows what was flushed and destroyed? I assume the ingested papers were few given Trump’s germaphobia.

Eighteen U.S.C. 641 imposes a $2,000 fine or three years imprisonment or both for these offenses. Interestingly enough, it also has a provision which says the person who has custody of the papers shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any public office again. I assume this provision was written with archivists in mind but it puts the specific provision of the law giving the president custodial responsibility for the papers while in office in new light.

Let’s be honest here. Former President Trump is not going to jail for any of his crimes. Unless the Archives discovers a receipt signed by Vladimir Putin for the nuclear codes the most that will happen is that Trump will pay a fine for tax evasion, plotting to overturn the government, sexually assaulting a woman or anything else he’s likely to be charged with.

The defense the right wing media is offering now is that he’s paranoid and he’s always torn up documents. It’s his way. Never mind the law or that being president is supposed to modify behavior to conform to that law. Obeying the law is part of the job description. Nonetheless, the defense is that he tears up everything from fast food receipts to classified material so really you can’t charge him with anything.

Personally I don’t care if he’s formally charged with a crime, I just want to know what he’s hiding. I’m so curious I could burst. Look at all the things he told us he was doing: threatening Ukraine’s President to get an advantage in the upcoming U.S. election, manipulating government power to prevent the legitimate transfer of power to the incoming president, considering using the military to stop the transfer of power. The only things he’s gone to the mat to prevent us from knowing are his payoff to the stripper and his tax returns. What is so important to him that he would eat a scrap of paper to keep us from knowing it?

We’ve always known he was hiding something. Suspicions abound – from payoffs by Putin through loans to his business to simple sexual misconduct. I don’t want hints or innuendo or guesses. I really, really, really want to know what he’s hiding. Don’t you?

 

Dr. Jane Elza, Ph.D., retired, is a resident of Valdosta.