As the blowback from the FBI search of former Republican President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence continues to intensify, the former President has now set his sights on attacking his predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama.
Amid the revelation that Trump may have been harboring classified documents, including those pertaining to nuclear weapons, in his home, Trump and his surrogates have begun leveling attacks at Obama for supposedly having done the same thing.
There's just one problem—it isn't true by a long shot.
Obama did remove tons of documents to Chicago, but it was part of the standard legal procedure for documentation and archiving of a President's time in office for the public record, not stashing classified state secrets in a safe.
Trump surely knows this, but it hasn't stopped him from accusing Obama of nefarious deeds on Truth Social, as seen below.
\u201c\ud83e\udd14\u201d— Jenna Ellis \ud83c\udf4a (@Jenna Ellis \ud83c\udf4a) 1660236730
"What happened to the 30 million pages of documents taken from the White House to Chicago by Barack Hussein Obama? He refused to give them back!"
"What is going on? This act was strongly at odds with NARA. Will they be breaking into Obama's 'mansion' in Martha's Vineyard?"
Though Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., along with Fox News and other Republicans, have amplified these accusations, they are baseless.
Obama's removal of documents was in fact the opposite "at odds with NARA"--the acronym for the National Archives and Records Administration, the federal entity that documents presidential business and which began the process that culminated in Monday's FBI search of Trump's home.
In fact, Obama's procedure has been entirely as directed by NARA, as the agency confirmed in its own statement on the matter.
\u201c.@USNatArchives responds to Trump\u2019s unsubstantial statement:\u201d— Jacqueline Alemany (@Jacqueline Alemany) 1660327259
Obama did indeed remove millions of pages of documents to Chicago--to a federal facility that is, in accordance with federal laws requiring presidents to maintain a detailed archive of their time in office so that it can be made available to the public.
After their removal from the White House, the National Archives takes possession of the records and documents to decide which ones will be included in the President in question's presidential library--in this case the Obama Presidential Library in Chicago.
Obama has deviated from standard NARA procedure in one way--he has paid, through his foundation, for his documents to be digitized for easier access by the public, the first time such a step has been taken.
All told, it's a pretty far cry from taking dozens of boxes of potentially classified state secrets--as confirmed by Trump's own lawyer--and stashing them in your home office, hence the federally requested and judicially approved search and seizure Monday.
On Twitter, Trump's utterly nonsensical post about Obama elicited lots of eyerolls.
\u201cWednesday: "The FBI planted evidence"\n\nThursday: "Sure there were classified documents taken, but Trump could declassify them anytime"\n\nFriday: "BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, MILLIONS OF DOCUMENTS, MAYBE NUCLEAR?"\u201d— Adam Weinstein (@Adam Weinstein) 1660323491
\u201cTurns out the storage closet at Mar-a-Lago is a federally maintained presidential library. I can't wait to visit!\u201d— Matt Shuham (@Matt Shuham) 1660322718
\u201c@PoliticsInsider @Jbowers903 Trump will always deflect & blame someone else for what he has done. I am so sick of him. Obama does things by the book. Just like Merrick Garland.\u201d— Politics Insider (@Politics Insider) 1660262668
\u201c@PoliticsInsider Trump always plays the Obama Card when he finds himself in hot water.\u201d— Politics Insider (@Politics Insider) 1660262668
\u201c@HouseofFunk99 @JennaEllisEsq Trump just confessed he knows the right way to process documents and he simply ignored it.\u201d— Jenna Ellis \ud83c\udf4a (@Jenna Ellis \ud83c\udf4a) 1660236730
\u201cHoo boy. \nWe knew this was coming. \ud83e\udd21\ud83d\ude02\u201d— Tammy \u270c (@Tammy \u270c) 1660275895
\u201c@JennaEllisEsq At the very least Trump is admitting guilt here if he thinks Obama should be prosecuted for the same thing. Not really the own you think it is.\u201d— Jenna Ellis \ud83c\udf4a (@Jenna Ellis \ud83c\udf4a) 1660236730
\u201cIt's a self-report when you point the guilty finger at someone else and say they did the same thing as you.\u201d— Tim Blonskee (@Tim Blonskee) 1660255175
\u201cYou\u2019d think if Obama took 30 million documents, Trump would\u2019ve demanded the DOJ to recover them, in the 4 years he was in office\u2026\u201d— Irishrygirl (@Irishrygirl) 1660327273
\u201c@JaxAlemany @maggieNYT @USNatArchives\u201d— Jacqueline Alemany (@Jacqueline Alemany) 1660327259
Sounds like someone's a bit nervous they've been caught red-handed!
@jimmyfallon/Instagram