Document Retention Quotes

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

The last time when I handed over information was in February or March 1949.

In the Iraq war, for instance, so much of the information is digitized and can easily be wiped out. That will make it very hard to write accurate histories. Also, there's a much greater opportunity for suppression of information before it can even be archived.

Normally it takes us 8 years to get rid of 10 thousand copies of one of our reports.

Simply being secretary of state didn't allow Clinton to authorize herself to deviate from the requirements of retaining and transmitting classified documents, materials and information.

I save everything. I have these carefully organized file boxes. Somewhere in there is a section of the 'New York Times' where I wrote 'The Border Guard' in the margin.

I think I have already signed some scrap of paper for every man, woman, and child in the United States. What do they do with all those scraps of paper with my signature on it?

It is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.

Sir, I see a lot of documents in my day-to-day business, and I can't tell you every document that I've seen. It may have passed across my desk. It may not have passed across my desk. I truthfully cannot answer that question, other than to say I don't remember.

As far as any personal records, if I get 'em, fine, and if I don't, fine.

The result is - document destruction - we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.

Michael Cohen is one of the world's greatest evidence hoarders. He rarely threw anything away.

Jim, I'm not aware of any formal requests from the Senate Judiciary Committee for these kinds of documents.

The longer you remain silent, the longer you don't turn over documents, a presumption begins to build that you're withholding something. That's human nature. That may not be a legal presumption, but that's a common sense presumption.

You know, I think there was a point in time when people didn't really understand how birth certificates were kept in the state of Hawaii, and now, I think that it's been pretty much disclosed that they used to have a long form and now they don't have a long form. Arizona used to have a long form, we now have a short form.

Where protection of certain sensitive information is well-founded, I remain committed to upholding the laws and longstanding policies governing classification and public release.

There can be no history without archives.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

You should keep a copy of your tax return indefinitely, but you need to save supporting documents for only three years.

The very purpose of Clinton's server was to intentionally retain documents and materials - all emails and attachments - on the server in her house, including classified materials.