Kim Jong-Un's ‘Love Letters’ To Donald Trump Retrieved From Mar-a-Lago Resort

The US National Archives had retrieved 15 boxes of documents, including “love letters” from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to Donald Trump, from Mar-a-Lago, the independent agency said Monday.

They had been improperly removed from the White House and taken to the former US President's southern Florida home, reported South China Morning Post. During a West Virginia rally in 2018, Trump commented on his relationship with Kim saying that they fell in love. "No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters.” Following the comment, the media as well as Trump supporters and opponents dubbed the unusual correspondence the Trump-Kim “love letters."

The retrieved items also included a letter that former US President Barack Obama left for Trump in 2017. Under the Presidential Records Act, the mementos and documents should have been turned over to the National Archives at the end of Trump’s presidency, according to The Washington Post. Instead they ended up at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero said that the National Archives pursues any documents it learns have been “improperly removed or have not been appropriately transferred to official accounts." The agency said that it did not get hold of the documents until mid-January, which is almost a year late.

It was previously reported that some of the documents from the Trump era that have been turned over to the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot had been ripped up and taped back together. Trump reportedly had a habit of tearing up documents, a routine that left staffers in charge of taping them back together.

The destruction of White House records and Trump taking boxes of official documents to his Florida resort likely violate the Presidential Records Act, according to Business Insider. Courtney Chartier, president of the Society of American Archivists, said that it is "absolutely a violation of the act." She added that there are "White House manuals about the maintenance of these records."

A former Trump official doesn’t think Trump "did this out of malicious intent to avoid complying with the Presidential Records Act." According to the official, as long as Trump has been in business, "he's been very transactional and it was probably his longtime practice and I don't think his habits changed when he got to the White House."