House Democrats are demanding that the Interior department retain documents related to President Donald Trump’s construction projects around Washington after whistleblowers warned that key paperwork has already been destroyed before Democrats take power, congressional sources tell CNN.
The warnings come as the Trump administration is signaling it will accelerate plans for moving ahead with the projects — a key part of what the president sees as his legacy — to lay as much groundwork as possible before the Democrats take over Congress in January.
On Tuesday, the top Democrat in the House Natural Resources committee, which has oversight of the agency that has helped fast-track many of Trump’s projects, plans to issue letters to the Interior Department as well as other federal agencies and private companies, requesting that they “preserve all records and data responsive to oversight” the congressional panel oversees.
The targets of the letters from Rep. Jared Huffman, shared first with CNN, give an early indication of what could be in the crosshairs for investigation when the California Democrat becomes chairman of the committee in the new Congress.
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Multiple credible whistleblowers have approached Huffman’s committee in recent weeks to voice concern that the Interior Department is getting rid of records in anticipation of forthcoming scrutiny, the sources told CNN. The agency oversees much of the national parkland Trump wants to use for his projects.
The Interior Department called the whistleblower claims “100% false.”
“The Department follows all federal records management obligations as directed by the Department’s ethics officials,” a spokesperson said.
Among the other recipients of the preservation letters are the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, which are part of Interior.
Letters are also being sent to the Agriculture Department and companies like Lockheed Martin and John Deere that are known to have donated to Trump’s projects. CNN has asked them for comment. Whistleblowers did not say these entities had destroyed documents.
However, all letter recipients must reply to certify their compliance, which requires efforts to “preserve existing records collections and productions,” as well as “Identify and recover any deleted information” and “suspend any destruction and deletion practices.”
A mandate to investigate
The typically under-the-radar National Resources committee may lack the prominence of the Judiciary or Oversight committees, but in the new Congress it is set to take on the mantle of chief antagonist and auditor of projects that Trump has deeply and personally invested in seeing through.
The committee holds legislative jurisdiction over national parks and federal lands, on which Trump is attempting to build projects like the East Potomac golf course and the triumphal arch.
“Everything is coming; it’s all coming,” Huffman told CNN in an interview, signaling that his committee is readying a large arsenal of tools that come with the gavel in the new majority.
“It’s just going to be an entirely new day,” he said, noting that a win of the magnitude Democrats achieved in the midterms will embolden their investigations, as there is a belief that they have a true mandate from voters who felt the president was focused on the wrong issues.
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Committee aides expect to hold a high-profile hearing on one or several projects early in the new Congress. The golf course and triumphal arch are chief among the areas of focus.
In anticipation of possible obstruction from the administration, the committee is prepared to issue subpoenas.
Huffman believes that the committee’s work could stop some of the president’s construction projects from going forward, “especially because we have standing to go to court if we have to,” he said. “We’ll have tools to be able to stop a lot of it.”
The committee has also been coordinating with House Oversight and Judiciary, which have mapped out an aggressive approach to investigate other areas of the administration.
Turbo-speed timelines
At the same time, multiple sources close to the approval process on Trump’s projects told CNN they are seeing a new urgency on the part of the administration to get as far as it can by the end of the year.
The move to supercharge some of the president’s projects is being met with ire by many in the preservationist community who have been fighting against them.
The triumphal arch; a project to put up fencing at Lafayette Square near the White House; the East Potomac Golf Links; and the Tidal Basin Development Concept plan, which includes the president’s Garden of American Heroes, will all see action pushing them ahead over the next 60 days.
Some will be going in front of key federal agencies for approval, and others are moving forward in the historical preservation evaluation process.
“We’re going to start seeing all of these things happening simultaneously,” said Charles Birnbaum of the Cultural Landscape Foundation. “It is going to be like a storm where it plays out until the new Congress is seated.”
The day after the midterm elections, Trump appeared in front of the White House ballroom construction site, signing the last steel beam before it was raised.
Davis Ingle, a spokesperson for the White House, said: “President Trump is moving at lightning speed because we don’t have time to waste in our mission to make America greater than ever before.”
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