Trump Has a ‘List' of National Archives Staff to Fire as Revenge for Docs Scandal

Yahoo

10-02-2025

In recent months, Donald Trump asked advisers for a 'list' of staff at the National Archives who he should purge, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Trump said the list was to include, but not be limited to, Archives officials involved with the effort to get the Biden-era Justice Department to help recover classified material Trump hoarded at Mar-a-Lago after he left office the first time. Trump's stubborn refusal to simply turn over all of the highly sensitive government documents led to the FBI raid of his Florida estate, and then to criminal charges in Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation (which were rendered moot by Trump's return to office).
The list, which Trump administration officials vetted, includes Archives staffers who were directly involved with the records standoff with the then-former president, as well as some who weren't, the sources add. There are some in Trump's ear who want him to oust everybody on the list. There are others close to Trump, including some senior White House staff, who think the final list of Archives staff to dismiss should be more carefully curated, as there are some names on the initial list who they feel were just doing their jobs and not worthy of blackballing.
The potential purge list includes Deputy Archivist of the United States William Bosanko, though it is unclear if he'll meet the same fate as now-former Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan, whom Trump dismissed on Friday. There are questions within the administration about whether Trump firing Bosanko would be legal. However, it is the position of the upper crust of the second Trump administration that the law — and the Constitution — should not get in the way of what the president, and his purge-buddy Elon Musk, want to do.
In response to a request for comment, a National Archives official sent Rolling Stone a letter the American Historical Association sent the White House in response to Shogan's dismissal last week. The letter notes that Shogan serves in a nonpartisan, Senate-confirmed role, and that the law requires the president to communicate to Congress why he is dismissing her. 'Democracy rests on the rule of law. And the history of the United States rests on unfettered access to the archival record,' the letter concludes.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For the opening weeks of Trump's second term, the president, Musk, and their allies have been conducting a widespread crackdown throughout different agencies and departments of the federal government, stamping out traces of diversity programs and ousting numerous officials and staffers involved with the Trump criminal investigations as well as officials suspected of anti-Trump sentiments.
Within the National Archives, officials are bracing for this wider purge to touch on them, and are taking a Trump-vengeance bloodletting as a given, three sources with knowledge of the matter say. Archives staff are 'talking in terms of inevitability,' says one person familiar with the situation,' noting that 'it's been grim.'
In October 2022, Rolling Stone reported that Trump was already starting to tell confidants that if he returned to power, he wanted to fire several officials at the National Archives and stack it with his MAGA lackeys. If or when he officially orders the dismissal of others beyond just Shogan, it would represent the culmination of his years-long thirst for revenge against the nonpartisan historical agency.
It would also underscore the staggering degree to which Trump is conducting his retribution tour. He is not satisfied with just purging high-profile institutions like the Justice Department and the FBI. He is also punishing institutions like the Archives — and even the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — for pissing him off over the years, as he and his lieutenants continue their blitz to try and subsume every corner of the federal government into Trump's conspiracy theory-fueled, far-right personality cult.
'National Archives employees who helped make the shocking decision to seek an unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful Biden Justice Department home raid on the former president — including searching Melania and Barron Trump's underwear drawers — over a dispute essentially about overdue library books deserve to get fired,' says Mike Davis, a close Trump ally and fixture in MAGA legal circles.
The National Archives long struggled to retrieve documents Trump took from the White House upon leaving office in January 2021. The two sides tried to come to terms throughout the rest of that year, and the Archives retrieved over a dozen boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January 2022. The boxes included everything from Trump's letters to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to classified material and intelligence documents pertaining to national security.
The saga was far from over. Justice Department officials visited Mar-a-Lago in June 2022, and Trump lawyers turned over even more classified material the then-former president took to Florida. The FBI was soon after tipped off that even more classified documents still remained at Trump's club, and in August that year, the FBI raided Trump's estate, seizing hundreds of additional classified documents — including highly sensitive material about nuclear weapons.
Trump was indicted on criminal charges for his handling of the material the following June. The indictment was damning, noting that Trump suggested lying about the documents, and even destroying them. It also detailed the haphazard way the documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago, with Trump stacking up sensitive material in unsecured locations, including a bathroom. He also showed classified documents to third parties who lacked security clearance, according to the indictment.
Trump claimed he did nothing wrong throughout the process, while asserting the Justice Department was targeting him for political reasons and suggesting any sensitive documents had been 'planted.'
Rolling Stone reported that prior to the indictment, Trump asked his lawyers if they could get 'my documents' and 'my boxes' back from the federal government. Trump has alleged that he declassified the material, although soon after he was charged, audio leaked of him admitting at one time that he 'can't' declassify some of the sensitive documents he took from the White House.
The case tilted in Trump's favor when it was assigned to Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge whom senior judges reportedly advised to pass the case to someone with more experience. She refused, going on to issue several judgements favorable to Trump before ultimately tossing the case last July. Trump's win in November's election snuffed out any possibility of accountability.
Now, Trump wants to hold the National Archives staffers accountable for daring to try to recover the classified material he took from the White House.
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