Judge Cannon released a less redacted version of President Trump’s motion to compel discovery on Monday that exposes collaboration between the Biden administration and NARA to develop Trump’s classified documents case.
Previously heavily redacted sections, such as “Early Indications of NARA Bias,” now reveal that NARA General Counsel Gary Stern communicated with President Trump’s representatives regarding the Presidential Records Act.
Stern mentioned conversations with the White House Office of Records Management and expressed concerns directly to NARA’s Archivist, David Ferriero.
The majority of this section was retracted in the original version, but now shows a note detailing how an employee of NARA told the FBI how it was not unusual for Presidential Records Act collection to extend past the close of any administration.
In a section titled “The Biden Administration Weaponizes the PRA,” it is revealed that “in late-September 2021, without disclosing that NARA had already drafted a referral letter and contacted DOJ, Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su asked one of President Trump’s representatives to permit [redacted] to access notes from the Trump administration related to records handling. Su then intervened when Stern offered to provide a copy of the notes to President Trump’s PRA representative, stating: ‘Could we discuss the process before anything is provided to him?'” The section following Jonathan Su's name was redacted.
Stern agreed to coordinate on this issue with the Biden Administration, but informed Su that the request was unusual since normally they would have to provide the records to Trump’s team per the notification/review process, before they could provide anything to the Biden admin. Stern assured Su two days later that the PRA representative had not asked to see these records. This section was redacted in its entirety.
Further revelations indicate Stern's strategy to coordinate NARA’s communications with Congress to prejudice President Trump and subsequent instructions from the Biden Administration to dismiss Trump’s executive privilege claim and provide records to the January 6th Committee.
Another section revealed that the special counsel’s office falsely claimed that NARA referred the matter to DOJ on February 9, 2022. However, evidence suggests that Su referred NARA to DOJ on January 21, 2022, on behalf of the Biden administration.
The less redacted version of the motion followed an early April directive from Judge Cannon. The special counsel was instructed to submit an index identifying potential government witnesses mentioned in the materials and collaborate on redactions that might reveal a witness's identity.
Read Cannon’s release of the less redacted document here.
