Whistleblower Docs Implicate NARA In Get-Trump Criminal Case

Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have launched an inquiry into the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) after documents provided by a whistleblower revealed the archives’ role in the criminal targeting of Trump in the alternative electors case. This recent revelation means NARA stood at ground-zero for both of the special counsel’s criminal cases, with NARA also behind the classified document investigation.

On Monday, Johnson and Grassley issued a press release announcing the opening of an inquiry into NARA and its inspector general, to probe the propriety of their involvement in the classified document and alternative electors criminal investigations of Donald Trump. The press release also noted Johnson, the Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Grassley, the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, were seeking “all NARA records, including the NARA Office of Inspector General, referring, or relating to the Arctic Frost and the classified document investigation.”

The FBI officially opened an investigation into the naming of alternative electors by various battleground state Republicans on April 13, 2022, dubbing the probe Arctic Frost. Since January 2025, Grassley and Johnson have been releasing various whistleblower records revealing coordination between the DOJ, FBI, and Biden White House to charge the former president in the trumped-up alternative electors case. 

The Republican senators also exposed the role the anti-Trump former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault played in prompting the launch of the criminal investigation. But Monday’s press release now suggests a new character in the get-Trump scheme: NARA.

While the press release made scant mention of the reason underlying the chairs’ decision to open an inquiry into both NARA and its inspector general, the senators’ announcement included links to five previous oversight statements and related documents.

Of particular import, the draft Electronic Communication proposing the opening of Arctic Frost, dated March 22, 2022, noted that “[p]rior to the FBI’s involvement in the case, agents from the United States Postal Inspector’s Service and the Investigative Unit of the Office of the Inspector General for the National Archives had both opened investigations related to this matter and were coordinating with the USAODC.”

So, even before Thibault — the virulently anti-Trump FBI agent — became involved in investigating the alternative electors, NARA’s Office of the Inspector General had opened an investigation into the matter, working with the D.C. U.S. Attorney. 

Yet, NARA’s interest in the investigation proves tangential at best, with the EC noting that “NARA, on behalf of the Archivist of the United States, coordinates certain Electoral College functions between the States and Congress.” “Acting as an intermediary,” the EC continued, “NARA reviews ‘Certificates of Ascertainment and Vote’ before Congress accepts them as evidence of official State action in preparation for the counting of electoral votes in Congress.”

Also, by statute, state electors must certify the electors and “dispose” of them by sending them by registered mail “to the President of the Senate at the seat of government,” the “secretary of state of the State,” and to the “Archivist of the United States at the seat of government.” Accordingly, NARA received the alternative elector certificates from Republicans in five states, where litigation over election disputes remained pending.

As I’ve detailed at length before, certifying a slate of alternative electors was “consistent with legal precedent to preserve the still ongoing legal challenges” in the various swing states. In fact, the naming of alternative or contingent electors “followed the precise approach Democrats successfully used when the date Congress established for certifying an election came before the legal challenges John F. Kennedy had brought in Hawaii were decided.” By certifying alternative elector during the 1960 election, Kennedy was able “to be certified the winner of Hawaii’s three electoral votes on Jan. 6, 1961, even though the Aloha State had originally certified Richard Nixon the victor.”

Given precedent supported the naming of alternative electors, only a rabid anti-Trump partisan would launch a criminal investigation into the former president and Republican electors for following that established legal strategy. Jack Smith and Fani Willis fit the mold, but NARA?

Yes. NARA.

As I detailed in “Records Suggest A Backbench Bureaucrat’s Partisan Grievance Spurred The FBI’s Nakedly Political Raid On Trump,” the classified document investigation into Trump which resulted in the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago and later the indictment of the former—and now current president—stemmed from a criminal referral by NARA. 

According to a February 10, 2022, Washington Post article, “archives officials asked the Justice Department to look into the matter …” of the supposed removal of classified documents by Trump. And [b]y March 2022, NARA was reportedly in “‘consultation’ with the Justice Department,” with a grand jury deliberating on the classified document case by the next month.

NARA’s referral of Trump to the DOJ contrasts to the approach the agency took when Hillary Clinton violated the “Federal Records Act.” Then, in response to questions asked by Sen. Grassley about the former secretary of state’s use of a non-governmental email account, archivist David Ferriero stated, “NARA has not Initiated an ‘Investigation’ of Secretary Clinton’s email practices; rather, as noted above, we have been communicating with the State Department on this matter, and are deferring to the State Department’s review (and any other agencies conducting Investigations).”

Ferriero, who has since retired from NARA, has a documented anti-Trump bias, which may well explain NARA’s referral of Trump to the DOJ and the agency’s non-investigation of Hillary Clinton.

Whether Ferriero also pushed the NARA inspector general to launch an investigation into the alternative electors is currently unknown, but the documents requested by Johnson and Grassley should provide the necessary transparency to understand which players at NARA were involved in double-barreled weaponization of the criminal justice system.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.