National Archive Sends 1.7 Million Pages to Donald Trump in Jan 6 Case

The U.S National Archives have given Donald Trump at least 1.7 million pages of material to defend himself in a lawsuit surrounding the events of January 6, 2021.

His lawyers have complained to a federal judge that the haul is disorganized with many files completely irrelevant to Trump’s defense.

Other documents in the huge number of pages are highly classified documents that cannot be shared with the lawsuit plaintiffs.

A separate criminal case in Florida had exposed considerable tensions between Trump and the National Archives and Records Administration after he refused to hand over thousands of pages of presidential records. It eventually led to NARA contacting the Justice Department.

Trump was indicted on a charge of hoarding classified documents after an FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. NARA officials were due to give evidence against Trump in that case but it was dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon.

Newsweek sought email comment from NARA and from the Trump legal team on Friday.

In a filing to Washington, D.C., judge Amit Mehta on Wednesday, Trump attorney Gary Lawkowski wrote that it was an “understatement” to say that NARA had supplied materials to the legal team.

He wrote that at a status hearing on August 6, 2024, a NARA attorney promised to deliver 4,270 documents, including 4,202 emails and 268 ‘Work Folder’ documents.

“It is now apparent that representation—though undoubtedly made in good faith—has proved to be a significant understatement,” Lawkowski wrote.

“To date, NARA has produced 231,121 unique documents, totaling 1,702,834 pages, with an additional 288 documents—such as Excel files—not readily quantifiable as a specific number of pages.”

“Many of the documents appear to be irrelevant to these proceedings, with a substantial number dating to the years 2017, 2018, and 2019, and including many documents that contain material that is both substantively irrelevant and also subject to executive and/or attorney-client privilege,” he explained.

The classified group of documents includes “materials pertaining to national security and foreign relations, Supreme Court nominations, DHS security briefs, and emails from White House counsel. In addition, some ‘documents’ are, in fact, collections of many unrelated documents together in a single .pdf file, with respect to which the date and content cannot be determined without a page-by- page review,” he wrote.

He complained that he “cannot provide plaintiffs’ counsel with copies of the irrelevant documents provided by NARA due to the executive privilege, attorney-client privilege, and in some cases national security equities involved.”

The lawsuit is a consolidated case involving members of Congress and police affected by the January 6, 2021, riot, in which Trump supporters invaded the Capitol building.

House Democrats said they were impeded in their duties by the January 6 attack.

The case was filed citing an 1871 act that was intended to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from intimidating members of Congress who were carrying out their duties

The case, Lee vs. Trump, originated from a complaint made by Democratic Party members of Congress, Representative Bennie Thompson, the former chairman of the January 6 Committee and California Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Nine other Congress members have also joined the lawsuit, along with police officers on duty on January 6.

Trump-supporting groups The Proud Boys and The War Boys are listed as defendants.