House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement on Wednesday that a “baseless” National Archives referral led to the weaponization of the federal government against former President Donald Trump.
Stefanik spoke to Breitbart News as the House Intelligence Committee released a transcript of the testimony of officials from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to the committee during a hearing that took place in March.
William Bosanko, chief operating officer for NARA, and Mark Bradley, the director of NARA’s Information Security Oversight Office, testified before the closed committee hearing.
Bosanko testified that it was he who contacted the Archives inspector general, who then referred the issue to the Justice Department. He also said that the correspondence between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Il was of particular concern.
During the hearing, Stefanik, a member of the Intelligence Committee, pressed Bosanko, asking if he had ever referred a previous president to the inspector general, to which he responded, “No.”
“This bombshell finding is the epitome of the illegal weaponization of federal agencies against President Trump, the leading candidate for President of the United States,” Stefanik told Breitbart News. “The fact is, an unelected bureaucrat at a federal agency egregiously abused their position with a baseless referral causing the unprecedented raid of the residence of a former President, based simply on personal correspondence from President Obama to President Trump and between President Trump and the leader of North Korea.”
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The House Intelligence Committee noted that the retention of classified documents is far more systemic than Trump’s retention of letters between him and foreign leaders:
Since 2010, NARA has received over 80 calls from different libraries and universities where former Members of Congress and senior government officials have taken papers and donated them. For instance, Senator Edmund Muskie inadvertently sent 98 classified documents to Bates College.
NARA officials testified that every presidential administration since the Reagan Administration has mishandled classified material, and they found classified and unclassified documents that were commingled.
NARA was looking for items of historical interest (e.g., the letter that President Obama left for President Trump and President Trump’s correspondence with Kim Jong Un) and was not aware of missing classified documents.
Stefanik said that she will continue to fight back against the federal government’s overreach.
She said, “I will continue my aggressive and effective oversight work to uncover the truth, cut out the rot and abuse in these agencies, and hold government officials accountable for their political weaponization of the government against President Trump and countless other Americans.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.