President Trump’s Transition Team Was Ordered to Preserve Documents: Report

The Trump transition team has been instructed to save documents related to the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times reports.

The transition team’s general counsel’s office reportedly sent a memo to members of the transition team, ordering them to preserve “any physical and electronic records that may be related in any way to the subject matter of the pending investigations,” according to the report.

Information on former campaign manager Paul Manafort, former adviser Carter Page, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, business partner of Manafort’s Rick Gates, and Roger Stone, who is called an informal Trump adviser in the document, is also being sought in the memo. The men named in the memo have been at times linked to the investigations into Russian meddling.

The Times reports that the internal memo indicates that any failure to preserve documents could result in criminal or civil penalties and “could form the basis of legal claims, legal presumptions, or jury instructions relating to spoliation of evidence.”

President Trump has continued to blast the investigation into Russian meddling as a “witch hunt” that has so far failed to produce any evidence that he colluded with Russians.

[NYT]