Speaker Johnson Orders Entire Biden Administration to Preserve and Retain All Records - Documents

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday ordered the entire administration of President Joe Biden to preserve all records and communications in the waning days of the outgoing Democrat administration as former President Donald Trump’s team prepares to take over.

Johnson, Breitbart News has learned exclusively, has sent letters to all 18 federal Departments ordering them to retain and preserve documents. This could become an explosive storyline if outgoing Biden administration officials attempt to delete or destroy documents that shed light on some of the radical policies they pursued or scandals with regard to censorship or other major storylines of the past four years, such as the deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan or the wide open border. If anyone is caught destroying any records, that could lead to serious federal criminal penalties—and with President-elect Trump’s team coming in to take over on Jan. 20, 2025, the new incoming administration will find all evidence on this front.

This effort from Johnson is a sign Republicans are far more prepared during this transition to a Trump administration than they were the first time around when Trump won his first term back in 2016, and suggests they mean business when it comes to rooting out corruption across the federal government as Trump assembles his Cabinet and Republicans on Capitol Hill prepare for next year.

Exclusive — Speaker Johnson Orders Entire Biden Administration to Preserve and Retain All Records and Documents

Looks like Speaker of The House Mike Johnson is firm and isn't tolerating any BS.

He has ORDERED The whole Biden Administration to retain records and documents !!

Maybe Trump's investigators have good knowledge that maybe just maybe some Democrat operators are planning a document purge to avoid exposure beyond what we've already seen.

This includes The White House and all the Executive Branch Departments like DHS, etc.

This Administration has broken a few laws that we know of. Hope they all get exposed and caught.

God only knows what they'll steal (like what was found in Biden's possession!) 😁

The country is pinniing its hopes on January 20,2025. I hope it comes off without a hitch and there aren't enough RINO's in DC to prevent Trump and Vance from having a most successful administration.

There are plenty of Republican politicians who are not neccessarily RINO's but still won't want political corruption too closely scrutinized for 'personal' reasons.

I don't believe there's any such thing as a 'moral' politician in DC....at least not one that ever gets a second term.

I have to question how will they know if they eat, incinerate or shred etc etc?

a reply to: xuenchen

How is it determined what has been deleted or destroyed once it’s gone?

Especially documents with the highest classification of secrecy?

Is there a cross department watchdog with ultra high top secret clearance that has access to all filing systems that can determine this?

I’m not convinced it can be achieved.

What if Joe’s garage burns down?

They were warming up the shredders and priming up bleechbit prior to this. Seriously if pertinent documents are missing heads need to roll. No more allowing this kind of flagrant violation of the law to go unpunished. Any destruction of the mentioned documents should be taken as an admission of guilt. We can play lawfare just like they can, they set the precedent.

originally posted by: Kaiju666
I have to question how will they know if they eat, incinerate or shred etc etc?

They have informant networks. 👁‍🗨

a reply to: xuenchen

The incoming GOP-majority Congress couldn't get these 4 treasonous liars (Pelosi/Cheney/Schiff/Kinzinger) leading the J6 committee to retain their documents, even after several warnings.

SEE: www.foxnews.com...

Congress has no authority this year, because the DOJ will not support them. Without DOJ support, Congress is toothless. By next year, an investigation can be conducted into what was burned and shredded, but it's just a time waster.

If the Supreme Court orders certain documents to be retained, and they're not, indictments can be brought next year by Trump's DOJ.

a reply to: xuenchen

Uhmm..... there's already a law that covers this for Presidential archiving.

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: xuenchen

Uhmm..... there's already a law that covers this for Presidential archiving.

And we all know who likes to break laws don't we.

a reply to: xuenchen

Yes we do.

www.lawfaremedia.org...

On Jan. 31 and Feb. 5, The Washington Post reported that former President Trump routinely “tore up briefings and schedules, articles and letters, memos both sensitive and mundane” in violation of the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and that some of the records received by the Jan. 6 committee had been “ripped up and then taped back together.” As the Washington Post pointed out, the fact that Trump ripped records wasn’t news. In 2018, Politico ran a profile on the two staffers tasked with Scotch taping Trump’s records back together. But the recent reporting suggests that Trump shredded far more documents than previously known, and that many of the shredded records ended up in “burn bags” and destroyed. That includes records of particular importance to the Jan. 6 committee’s ongoing investigation related to Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

nsarchive.gwu.edu...

In their letter sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the National Security Archive and CREW lay out the basis for an investigation, which they argue is particularly necessary after private lawsuits to enforce the PRA have notably failed to have any meaningful impact as a restraint against malfeasance in the area of historical preservation. The numerous offenses committed by the former president *that we know of* include:

White House staff using encrypted disappearing messaging applications that prevented the required preservation in the White House’s recordkeeping system;

President Trump refusing to adhere to legal obligations to create and preserve records of meetings with foreign leaders – a move that hampers both US and international policymakers and historians;

Trump’s habit of regularly tearing up presidential records, forcing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) officials to painstakingly tape them back together;

andTrump’s failure to turn over numerous records to NARA at the end of his term, as required by the PRA.

apnews.com...

Among the documents found at Mar-a-Lago were ones marked “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET.” The documents included details about the country’s nuclear weapons and the nuclear capabilities and military activities of other countries. Prosecutors allege, for example, that Trump showed off a classified map of a foreign country while discussing a military operation.

High energy usage beyond green new deal limits
in those offices right now.

Don't think that will help everybody, just like
last time there will be a fall guy and gal.

Who ya gonna call, ghost busters?

a reply to: grey580

originally posted by: WeMustCare
a reply to: xuenchen

........

Congress has no authority this year, because the DOJ will not support them. Without DOJ support, Congress is toothless. By next year, an investigation can be conducted into what was burned and shredded, but it's just a time waster.

If the Supreme Court orders certain documents to be retained, and they're not, indictments can be brought next year by Trump's DOJ.

1. Congress has no authority to order the Executive Branch to do anything because they are separate branches of the Government, under the Constitution.

2. The Supreme Court can't order any documents to be retained for several reasons. First, there would have to be some kind of civil lawsuit brought to demand they be preserved, and the lawsuit would have to make its way through the court system to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can only issue rulings on cases that make their way through the court system--they can't go out and proactively order anything. The immediate question would be, "Who has standing to bring such a lawsuit?". Mike Johnson doesn't. He would not be personally harmed if some documents weren't preserved. And finally, even if a lawsuit were to make it all the way up the Supreme Court, the SC has already decided that a sitting POTUS has immunity from prosecution for official acts. That would include President Biden.

a reply to: Boomer1947

Congress has no authority to order the Executive Branch to do anything because they are separate branches of the Government, under the Constitution.

well actually . . . . . 😁

The primary legal basis for Congress to direct a cabinet department to keep documents is derived from the "Necessary and Proper Clause" found in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18 of the U.S. Constitution, which allows Congress to make laws that are "necessary and proper" to carry out its enumerated powers, including oversight of the executive branch and access to government documents.

Congress’s Authority to Influence and Control
Executive Branch Agencies

a reply to: xuenchen

I'll just leave this here.

www.law.cornell.edu...

Another statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2071, which makes it a crime to willfully destroy or mutilate federal records, arguably goes further. The statute states, “Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.” (emphasis added)

Speaker Johnson Orders Entire Biden Administration to Preserve and Retain All Records - Documents

so i guess no shredding party or bon fire in the rose garden hunh?

double post

originally posted by: xuenchen

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: xuenchen

Uhmm..... there's already a law that covers this for Presidential archiving.

And we all know who likes to break laws don't we.

As I'm telling MAGA-haters, the party in power implements whatever they want to, unless the Supreme Court orders them to stop. And even then sometimes the administration ignores the SCOTUS (like Biden did with their "remain in Mexico" order/ruling.)

a reply to: grey580

And who is the ultimate authority when it comes to the classification or declassification of documents in America?

You may want to read a Supreme Court decision on it...

Department of the Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988)

Let me give you quote from there...

The President, after all, is the ‘Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States’" according to Article II of the Constitution, the court’s majority wrote. "His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security ... flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant."

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, said that such authority gives the president the authority to "classify and declassify at will."

Now, I know leftists have tried to twist this Presidential power trying to make it something it isn't...

But at the end of the day it doesn't matter.

Read up on plenary powers of the US President.

To the OP, I really doubt that any records from the current Executive branch that are harmful will be retained and there will be no repercussions for that.

Unless they can prove (by having the documents now) that they were destroyed at a later date.

THAT's not gonna happen...