David Corn writes:

The latest Donald Trump scandal is about as surprising as finding mold on pizza left in the fridge for a month. A few days ago, the Washington Post revealed that when Trump vacated the White House he took 15 boxes of presidential documents and other items with him. That was a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of all documents—memos, letters, notes, emails—related to a president’s official duties. It was enacted in 1978 after Richard Nixon absconded with a host of material from his tainted presidency. The National Archives and Records Administration retrieved the Trump records from Mar-a-Lago, and it has asked the Justice Department to investigate. But, of course, the story is crazier. In a forthcoming book on Trump, New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman reports staff in the White House residence periodically found clumps of paper clogging a toilet and believed Trump was flushing pieces of paper—another sign the chief executive may have been violating the records act. “It was not toilet paper,” Haberman told CNN.

This is not entirely a new controversy. In 2018, Politico reported that Trump routinely ripped up documents and tossed them into the garbage and aides had to retrieve the torn fragments and tape them back together to meet the preservation requirements of the law.

This all raises the question: can Trump be prosecuted for violating federal law. And if he is found guilty, could he be blocked from seeking the presidency again?

According to the Congressional Research Service, anyone who engages in the “unlawful removal or destruction of government records” is subject to punishment under Title 18, Section 2071, of the US Code. [Continue reading…]