Trump has had a number of firsts, including that he’s the first president who anybody cared what he did with classified documents after he left office. From Helena Glass at lewrockwell.com:
The Presidential and Federal Records Act was amended in 2014 by Obama. The skirmish over how documents were handled and the rules surrounding any documents was assigned to NARA archivists. Despite this, the entirety of Obama documents remain housed outside of NARA control in a private storage facility in Huntington Illinois. The given reasoning is that the archives is overburdened and doesn’t have the capacity to take control of Obama’s records…
The Obama era Amendment states that all records will be available to the public within five years of a president vacating office. The Obama records have been ‘unavailable’ for over 7 years. According to the National Archives, Obama’s documents may be viewed at his public library address of 2500 W Golf Road, Illinois – an abandoned furniture store. In 2022, the building was listed for sale.
It is NOT a secure warehouse or storage facility. It is NOT a presidential library. It was an abandoned furniture store that is currently leased by the GSA for Obama’s 33 million documents… With no public access. Up until 2021, the facility had 3 employees. According to NARA’s Chicago website:
The Barack Obama Presidential Library is not part of the National Archives at Chicago.
When viewing the Obama Presidential Library Website – I was redirected to a photo-op and old photos of artifacts collected by Obama over his course as President. There is NO public access to ‘records’. “Since 2012, NARA has required all Federal agencies to use ERA to submit records schedules to NARA for approval by the Archivist. Additionally, ERA manages the transfer of all permanent records, in all formats and media, transferred to NARA through the Annual Move or by direct offer.”
