Over the years Trump has destroyed thousands of documents & records in defiance of court orders. . .

[CousinIT]

...and documents related to the current Russian investigation are no exception. . . .

Donald Trump has a long, troubling history of destroying and hiding important documents in lawsuits, but he thinks Hillary Clinton’s the one who should be going to jail.

Over the course of decades, Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders. These tactics—exposed by a Newsweek review of thousands of pages of court filings, judicial orders and affidavits from an array of court cases—have enraged judges, prosecutors, opposing lawyers and the many ordinary citizens entangled in litigation with Trump. In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records.

This behavior is of particular import given Trump’s frequent condemnations of Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent, for having deleted more than 30,000 emails from a server she used during her time as secretary of state. While Clinton and her lawyers have said all of those emails were personal, Trump has suggested repeatedly on the campaign trail that they were government documents Clinton was trying to hide and that destroying them constituted a crime. The allegation—which the FBI concluded was not supported by any evidence—is a crowd-pleaser at Trump rallies, often greeted by supporters chanting, “Lock her up!”

TRUMP’S USE OF DECEPTION and untruthful affidavits, as well as the hiding or improper destruction of documents, dates back to at least 1973, when the Republican nominee, his father and their real estate company battled the federal government over civil charges that they refused to rent apartments to African-Americans. The Trump strategy was simple: deny, impede and delay, while destroying documents the court had ordered them to hand over.

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/donald-trump-companies-destroyed-emails-documents-515120.html

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Now, if all this seems mighty familiar, that's because THE DONALD IS PULLING HIS USUAL M.O. ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA RIGHT NOW. . . .

Trump campaign likely did not save documents key to Russia investigation: http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/335481-trump-campaign-likely-didnt-save-documents-report

. . .Political campaigns, Politico noted, are typically not required to preserve emails on their private server for long windows of time, and most messages are deleted within 30 to 90 days, unless steps are taken to preserve them.

What's more, the Trump campaign did not do much to establish a plan to maintain those communications, according to a former campaign aide.

"You’d be giving us too much credit,” the former aide told Politico. "The idea of document retention did not come up. The idea of some formal structure did not come up."

The White House itself is subject to more rigorous recordkeeping rules, and White House counsel Don McGahn directed staffers in February to preserve documents and other records that could be requested or used in ongoing federal investigations into Russian election meddling.

But at issue for some White House staffers is the existence of encrypted apps, such as Signal and Confide, that automatically delete messages. Failure to maintain certain records, according to Politico, could potentially lead to legal trouble.

U.S. law requires individuals to preserve documents, emails and other records once they become aware that such material could be pertinent to an investigation, regardless of whether they are formally notified by investigators.

[onecaliberal]

1. I read a month or two ago they were asked to preserve things. Same article said

Everyone was getting rid of email and purging phones

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. Watching us be destroyed is like watching a reality show.

It is happening, and the ONE thing we can do to stop it, talk about how the two party system works and does NOT work...well, that is divisive I have been told.

[sfwriter]

3. Aren't penalties greater now though?

I mean, doesn't a failure to do this preservation amount to an offense that is prosecutable in some form?

I do not know myself. It seems like the two crimes are in different leagues.

[Blue_Roses]

4. I'm so glad Obama's administration backed up

and saved a lot of their documents. I'm not even sure where they are storing it for now, but I know it can't be in the WH.