Lawsuit filed over DOJ's record-keeping memo
By: Kathryn Palmer
USA today
..... The nation's largest organization of historian and a government watchdog group are suing President Donald Trump and his administration over preservation of presidential records.
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The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, on April 6, [2026] challenges a recent Justice Department memorandum declaring the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional. The act, established more than 45 years ago in the wake of the Watergate crisis, demands all presidential administrations hand over their records at the end of their terms to the national Archives and Records Administration - known as the "nation's scorekeeper" - for the benefit of the American public.
..... The American Historical Association, which says it has more than 10,000 members, and the watchdog American Oversight said in the filing that the case is "about the preservation of recored that document our nation's history, and whether the American people are able to access and learn from that history."
..... The lawsuit challenges an April 1 [2026] memo from the Justice department's Office of Legal Counsel calling the President Records Act unconstitutional. T. Elliot Gaiser, appointed by Trump as the office's assistant attorney general, wrote on the "independence and autonomy of the President."
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Since the Nixon administration, federal law has required presidential records to be controlled by the National Archives after a president's term ends. that requirement stemmed from president Richard Nixon's attempt to destroy the White House tapes that incriminated him in the cover-up of the Watergate burglary.
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"As of this moment, the Administration free to destroy records of his official government conduct, or even spirit away the records for his own future personal use," the two groups allege in their filing challenging Gaiser's memo.
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The DOJ declined to comment on the lawsuit.
..... White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement that "President trump is committed to preserving records from his historic Administration and he will maintain a rigorous records retention program."
..... Jackson added that the president is retaining the current preservation system for electronic records, in which emails and documents cannot be deleted, and that all staff of the Executive Office of the president are required to take records training.
..... Trump has run up against federal requirements for record keeping and document storage before.
..... More than 300 classified documents were recovered from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate more than a year after he left the White House. Most were collected under subpoena in June 2022 or during an unprecedented FBI search of the President's Florida hoe in august 2022.
..... The president was indicted on 40 criminal counts in June and July 2023 for allegedly keeping classified information and other sensitive presidential records from his first term in office, in violation of the law. Most of the counts focused on allegations that Trump willfully retained national defense information.
..... The indictment was dismissed in 2024. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, whom Trump nominated to the bench, wrote that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith in the case was unlawful.
..... Trump argue repeatedly that he could take records with him after leaving the White House, despite the President Records Act requiring otherwise.
..... Contributing: Reuters