Interior Department records tied to Trump’s construction projects around Washington are being destroyed before Democrats take control of Congress in January, according to multiple whistleblowers who have gone to House Democrats with the warning.
The whistleblowers approached the House Natural Resources Committee in recent weeks, according to congressional sources who spoke to CNN. Their concern is that the Interior Department is getting rid of paperwork because it knows scrutiny is coming. The whistleblowers have not been publicly identified.
The Interior Department is the federal agency that manages national parks and much of the public land in the country, including the parkland in Washington where Trump wants to build several of his projects. Agencies under it include the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
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Interior is denying everything. A department spokesperson called the whistleblower claims “100% false” and said the department follows all federal records management obligations as directed by its ethics officials.
Nothing has independently confirmed that records were destroyed. But under the Federal Records Act, federal agencies are required to keep official records, including emails and messages about government business, and they cannot get rid of them without approval from the National Archives. Destroying records outside that process breaks the law.
This is not the first time Interior has faced questions about its records. Politico reported in August that the department had been using disappearing message features, like the ones on Signal, in ways that would not line up with federal records retention laws, according to whistleblowers at the time.
Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, is now sending letters demanding that Interior, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Agriculture Department preserve all records connected to the committee’s oversight. The letters are also going to Lockheed Martin and John Deere, two companies known to have donated to Trump’s projects. The whistleblowers did not accuse either company of destroying documents.
Every recipient has to respond and certify that they are complying. That means keeping existing records, trying to identify and recover anything that has already been deleted, and stopping any practices that destroy or delete records.
Huffman is expected to become chairman of the committee when the new Congress is seated in January after Democrats’ big midterm wins, and he made it clear the committee is ready to dig in. He told CNN that everything is coming and that it will be an entirely new day. Committee aides expect to hold a high profile hearing on one or more of Trump’s projects early next year, with the East Potomac golf course and the triumphal arch at the top of the list. The committee is also prepared to issue subpoenas, which are legal orders forcing people to hand over documents or testify, if the administration tries to block its work.
Huffman believes the committee could stop some of the projects from moving forward, pointing out that the committee will have standing to go to court. Standing simply means the legal right to bring a lawsuit.
The projects at the center of all this have drawn heavy criticism from preservation groups. They include a golf course at East Potomac Park, a triumphal arch, new fencing at Lafayette Square near the White House, and a Tidal Basin plan that includes Trump’s Garden of American Heroes. A federal judge recently blocked construction on the arch even after it won a key approval. Separately, the Supreme Court allowed construction to continue on Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom, and the day after the midterms, Trump stood at the ballroom construction site and signed the last steel beam before it was raised.
Sources close to the approval process told CNN the administration is now rushing to push the projects as far as possible before Democrats take power. The arch, the Lafayette Square fencing, the golf course and the Tidal Basin plan are all expected to see action over the next 60 days, with some going before federal agencies for approval and others moving through the historic preservation review process.
Charles Birnbaum of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, which has been fighting the projects, told CNN he expects everything to happen at once, comparing it to a storm that will play out until the new Congress is seated.
The White House is not hiding the urgency. Spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump is moving at lightning speed because there is no time to waste.
