Thursday, October 28, 2010

Federal Agents Raid Retired NARA Employee's Home

I've got lots to catch up on tonight and will have a recap of "Why Books?" Day 1 shortly, but before I get to that, big news out of Maryland today: NARA investigative agents and U.S. Marshals on Tuesday raided the Rockville home of retired National Archives department head Leslie Waffen, according to local media reports.

"A law enforcement official familiar with the details of the search said agents arrived with a moving truck and an extensive list of items they were seeking. Archives investigators located boxes of materials and 'identified [the items] right away as theirs' in a basement room and, after securing the contents, removed the boxes from the house and loaded them onto the truck." Reports suggest that as many as "10 to 20 boxes" were removed from the house.

TBD.com reports that prior to his retirement this past June, Waffen had been in charge of the Motion Picture, Sound, and Video unit at NARA. He was not arrested during the search, and no charges have been filed as of this evening.

More to come, I'm sure ...