US House to investigate whether Trump broke law in handling of documents

The House oversight committee on Thursday opened an investigation into potential violations of the Presidential Records Act by Donald Trump, after he retained and destroyed some records relevant to the Capitol attack inquiry.

The House committee investigating Capitol attack committee has also reportedly found gaps in critical hours on the day of the riot in White House telephone logs, according to the New York Times. Although investigators know Trump was making calls at those times, there are only sparse records of calls in the official logs. Trump was known to regularly use cellphones to communicate, and investigators say they do not have evidence that official phone records were interfered with.

The boxes retrieved from Trump contained documents that had been requested by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack and what the Archives believed were classified materials, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Trump also appeared to have disposed of documents by flushing them down a toilet in the White House, which then had to be unclogged by staffers, according to reporter Maggie Haberman in her forthcoming book Confidence Man.

According to the New York Times, the boxes contained what the National Archives and Records Administration believed was classified information in some documents.

Trump arranged the return of the materials, the National Archives said. But the agency was alarmed by the presence of classified materials, and asked the justice department to examine whether to open a criminal investigation, the source said.

The former president did not respond to claims that White House staff periodically found wads of printed paper clogging Athena toilet.