WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal task force aiming to fix the mishandling of classified documents that it says has plagued outgoing presidential administrations for decades is recommending better guidance and training on such materials.
Released Friday, the recommendations come nearly a year after President Joe Biden formed the Presidential Records Task Force with the goal of studying past transitions to determine best practices for safeguarding classified information from one administration to the next.
The task force is also calling on Congress to provide money for secure storage, so presidents can safely access the records after leaving office.
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Biden created the task force mere days after a Justice Department special counsel’s report sharply criticized him for mishandling sensitive documents from his time as vice president that should have gone to the National Archives for safekeeping.
That case came after federal agents searched Donald Trump’s Florida estate and charged him with purposefully hoarding top secret documents.
How potentially sensitive documents are handled is especially salient now, meanwhile, since Biden is in the process of packing up to leave the White House, three days before Trump takes office on Monday.
“For nearly 50 years, every administration — Republican and Democrat — has faced the issue of classified documents being inadvertently removed during presidential transitions,” the task force wrote in its final memo. “In recent years, classified documents from previous presidential administrations have surfaced in unsecured locations.”
The group found that “the inadvertent retention of classified materials is most likely to occur during an outgoing transition” and blamed “the often overwhelming number of responsibilities” that departing employees are managing while also worrying about leaving their own jobs.
To rectify that, it recommended that the executive office of the president provide improved educational materials to ensure staff are aware of the requirements of the Presidential Records Act — a 1978 law mandating the preservation of presidential documents as property of the U.S. government. It also said that the executive office should offer year-round training on the Presidential Records Act.
The task force additionally noted that presidents and vice presidents have legal rights to access documents once they have left office but that no federal funding has been provided giving them mechanisms to do so.
It said Congress should allocate money for secure storage of sensitive materials, including in interim facilities and long-term post-administration sites.
The February 2024 report from special counsel Robert Hur listed dozens of sensitive documents found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former Washington office. It also characterized Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” fueling public concerns over his mental acuity that eventually led Biden to abandon his reelection bid. Even so, Hur concluded that charges were not warranted in the matter.
After agents raided his Mar-a-Lago club in 2022, Trump was eventually indicted, but decried the case against him as politically motivated. It was scrapped after he won last fall’s presidential election.
