The Obama Foundation likely stored classified presidential records illegally in a private facility at Hoffman Estates in Illinois for more than a year after President Barack Obama left the White House, according to America First Legal (AFL).
In 2018, more than a year after Obama left the White House, the National Archives (NARA) and the Obama Foundation entered into an agreement to permit the foundation to maintain possession of presidential records for the purpose of digitizing and overseeing them as part of the Obama Presidential Center, AFL alleges.
The agreement shows the Obama Foundation kept classified documents at a private facility in Hoffman Estates, AFL contends, noting that NARA moved the documents from a location in Hoffman Estates to a NARA-controlled facility in the estate to “conform with the agency’s archival storage standards.”
According to AFL, it is unknown whether the Obama Foundation’s original facility at the estate conformed with NARA’s “archival storage standards,” raising the likelihood that the foundation illegally stored classified information.
In addition, to facilitate the transaction from the original facility to a location that conformed to NARA’s standards, the Obama Foundation paid NARA $3,300,000, America First Legal asserts.
The payments present “the appearance of a conflict of interest, if NARA looked the other way upon learning that the Obama Foundation was illegally storing classified records,” the legal defense fund wrote.
AFL filed a Freedom of Information Act request on April 28 with the National Archives to ascertain the events surrounding the Obama Foundation’s storage of classified documents at the Hoffman Estates.
Along with other information, the legal defense fund requested:
A. All statutes and regulations relied upon by NARA for its authority to enter into a Letter of Intent (LOI) agreement with the Obama Foundation.
B. All records reflecting the date at which the Obama Foundation’s Hoffman Estates facility became NARA-controlled Obama Presidential Center.
C. All statutes and regulations relied upon by NARA for its authority to accept $3,300,000 on behalf of the National Archives Trust Fund.
NARA FOIA Re Obama Foundation LOI and Trump Transition by Breitbart News on Scribd
NARA has claimed that Hoffman Estates has stored classified records “in an appropriately secured compartment within the facility.”
However, NARA has denied that the Obama Foundation paid funds “to help convert the Hoffman Estates facility to cover some of the expenses of moving the classified records, but the foundation has never had possession or control over the records.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.