Last Updated on November 21, 2022
UPDATE: NARA stored the documents in a classified warehouse, not the Obama Administration
The Obama Foundation stored classified documents in an abandoned furniture warehouse, according to a 2018 letter from the Obama Foundation to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The letter, which is available on the Obama Foundation website, reveals that the Obama Foundation admitted to storing the classified documents in a warehouse that does not meet NARA standards for secure storage. Despite being aware of the Obama Foundation’s doings, NARA has not referred the matter to the DOJ, which they did in the case of former President Trump.
“The Obama foundation agrees to transfer up to three million three hundred thousand dollars ($3,300,000) to the National Archives Trust Fund (NATF) to support the move of classified and unclassified Obama Presidential records and artifacts from Hoffman Estates to NARA-controlled facilities that conform to the agency’s archival storage standards for such records and artifacts, and for the modification of such spaces,” reads a section of the letter.
“The first transfer of $300,000 was already made on August 9, 2018. An additional interim transfer will be made within 180 days of that date. Subsequent payments are subject to the negotiation of terms of the digitization process and museum operations,” the letter continued.
A 2018 report from The Daily Herald confirmed that the Obama Foundation had rented storage space from Hoffman Estates in order to store the documents. “While no firm date has been announced for the completion and opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Library near the University of Chicago, its future contents will stay in Hoffman Estates for four more years,” wrote the Herald. “Village board members unanimously approved an extension to the special-use permit that enables landlord Hoffman Estates Medical Development LLC to lease the 74,200-square-foot former Plunkett Furniture store at 2500 W. Golf Road to the National Archives and Records Administration through Dec. 31, 2026.”
This past August, the Obama Foundation extended their original lease on the property for an additional four years, PJ Media reported.
Storage of classified documents at the suburban Chicago retail space has seemingly been common knowledge for years. A March 2019 article on the website of WBEZ-FM, a Chicago-based radio station, was titled, “What’s That Building? Why This Hoffman Estates Warehouse Stores Barack Obama’s Presidential Papers.”
“If you drove past this suburban building, you likely wouldn’t suspect it houses the classified and non-classified documents from Barack Obama’s eight years as president,” the article reads. “More than 20 truckloads of papers were brought from Washington, D.C., to this shuttered Plunkett furniture store in Hoffman Estates in early 2017.”
Author Dennis Rodkin goes on to say that digitizing the documents will allow the Obama Foundation to save “quite a bit of money.”
“When ex-presidents build their presidential libraries, they are required by law to provide an endowment to the National Archives, the agency that manages presidential libraries. Today, that endowment must equal 60 percent of the cost of the library. That means that if the Obama Presidential Center included a library, the Obama Foundation would also have to raise tens of millions more for the endowment.”
The article goes on to confirm that the property does indeed house both classified and unclassified documents.
“The documents won’t stay in Hoffman Estates forever. Under the digitizing plan, the National Archives will get custody of all the physical papers once they’ve been put online. The unclassified documents will go to a National Archives storage facility near Kansas City, Mo. and the classified ones will go back to Washington, D.C.”
It also provided insight into the lax security situation at the facility. “Until the digitizing work begins, the documents will stay in Hoffman Estates behind the small security gate installed at the parking lot entrance.”
Documents reportedly stored at former President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate were stored in a locked room, the Western Journal reported. Secret Service agents also guard the property around the clock.
