President Donald Trump’s Interior Department is getting rid of records tied to his Washington construction projects, while the administration races to push those projects forward before Democrats take control of Congress in January, according to whistleblowers.
Several credible whistleblowers have approached the Democratic staff of the House Natural Resources Committee in recent weeks with concerns that the department is disposing of documents ahead of forthcoming scrutiny, congressional sources told CNN.
The Interior Department, which oversees much of the national parkland Trump wants to build on, called the claims “100 percent false.”
“The Department follows all federal records management obligations as directed by the Department’s ethics officials,” a spokesperson said.
Democrats aren’t taking any chances, though. On Tuesday, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), the committee’s top Democrat and incoming chairman, plans to send letters demanding that Interior “preserve all records and data” relevant to the panel’s oversight.
Letters are also going to the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Agriculture Department and companies that have donated to Trump’s projects, including Lockheed Martin and John Deere. The whistleblowers did not accuse those companies of destroying documents.
Every recipient must certify compliance. That means suspending deletion practices and working to “identify and recover any deleted information.”
The letters offer an early look at...
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