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Trump faces a criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice
Department into whether he illegally retained documents from the
White House when he left office in January 2021 and whether he
tried to obstruct the probe. The FBI seized roughly 11,000
documents during a court-approved search at his Florida home on
Aug. 8, including 100 marked as classified.
At a rally in Arizona on Sunday, Trump accused three former
presidents - Republicans George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and
Democrat Bill Clinton - of taking millions of documents and
storing them in unsecure locations including a Chinese
restaurant, a bowling alley and a car dealership.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), without
naming Trump, said it took possession of all records from those
three former presidents. The agency previously rejected a
similar claim that Trump had made about his immediate
predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, which he repeated on Sunday.
The National Archives said it moved the records of those former
presidents to temporary facilities located near future
presidential libraries.
"All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security
standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA
employees," the agency said in a statement.
"Reports that indicate or imply that those presidential records
were in the possession of the former presidents or their
representatives, after they left office, or that the records
were housed in substandard conditions, are false and
misleading," it added.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Will Dunham)
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