The National Archives has begun to turn over Trump administration documents to the January 6 committee, with recent reports revealing the former president’s tendency to constantly destroy records. According to former White House counsel John Dean, Donald Trump’s habit of destroying presidential records means he has a “guilty mind.”
Speaking on CNN, Dean, a prominent figure during the Watergate scandal, said that the Justice Department needs to investigate the former president on a number of potential charges that would be placed against him. Dean cited that the former president obstructed justice as well as tampered with witnesses when he dangled pardons to January 6 insurrectionists should he return to the White House in 2024.
Dean touched on the reports that Trump had a habit of destroying or ripping up presidential records when the congressional committee received documents from the National Archives that have been taped back together. Host Jim Acosta asked Dean if it reminded him of the Watergate scandal about people tearing up documents.
“Yes, it shows a guilty mind,” said Dean. “Somebody who is president had to have been briefed about presidential records – that he had to keep them. And he’s destroying documents. His staff, fortunately, is putting them back together.”
“Indeed, I think a lot of evidence is going to come up missing. We understand that a lot of things that were supposed to be in the records never got there, so that hasn’t been sorted out yet,” said Dean, when Acosta noted that some of the documents may have been permanently destroyed.
Regardless of the documents that have been destroyed by Trump during his presidency, the congressional committee probing the January 6 Capitol insurrection continues to receive more and more volumes of documents from the Trump White House. Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who serves on the committee, revealed that they have received a “voluminous” amount of Trump White House records related to January 6.
“Let me just say that the call records we got from the National Archives are voluminous,” said Lofgren, who added that the amount of evidence they have would hopefully compel Republican Rep. Jim Jordan to come forward and testify. Lofgren also noted that the committee is not sure whether they would still require former vice president Mike Pence to testify as they have received testimonies and records from his top aides already.