by Jason Walsh at dailyfetched.com
The Obama Foundation likely Illegally stored classified presidential records in a private facility at Hoffman Estates in Illinois for over a year after President Barack Obama left the White House, America First Legal (AFL) said.
More than a year after Obama left the White House in 2018, the National Archives (NARA) and the Obama Foundation agreed to permit the foundation to maintain possession of presidential records in order to digitize and oversee them as part of the Obama Presidential Center, AFL claims.
According to the agreement, the Obama Foundation kept classified documents in a private facility in Hoffman Estates, AFL charges.
It also noted that the NARA transferred the documents from a location in Hoffman Estates to a NARA-controlled facility to “conform with the agency’s archival storage standards.”
However, whether the Obama Foundation’s original facility conformed with NARA’s “archival storage standards” is unknown, which now raises the likelihood that the classified information was stored illegally.
Additionally, to facilitate the transaction from the original facility to a location that adgered to NARA’s standards, America First Legal asserts the Obama Foundation paid NARA $3,300,000
The legal defense fund asserted the payments show “the appearance of a conflict of interest if NARA looked the other way upon learning that the Obama Foundation was illegally storing classified records.”
A Freedom of Information Act request was filed by the AFL on April 28 with the National Archives to ascertain the events surrounding g the Obama Foundation’s storage of the classified documents.
The legal defense fund requested the following:
A. All statutes and regulations relied upon by NARA for its authority to enter into a Letter of Intent (LOI) agreement with the Obama Foundation.
B. All records reflecting the date at which the Obama Foundation’s Hoffman Estates facility became the NARA-controlled Obama Presidential Center.
C. All statutes and regulations relied upon by NARA for its authority to accept $3,300,000 on behalf of the National Archives Trust Fund.
NARA claimed that Hoffman Estates stored the classified records “in an appropriately secured compartment within the facility.”
But the NARA has denied funds were paid by the Obama Foundation “to help convert the Hoffman Estates facility to cover some of the expenses of moving the classified records, but the foundation has never had possession or control over the records.”