Trump Administration Moves to Destroy Presidential Records After Years of Document Violations

The Trump administration just took a sledgehammer to government transparency. In a blunt legal opinion issued earlier this month, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel declared the Presidential Records Act of 1978 unconstitutional—a law specifically designed to prevent presidents from destroying or hiding records of their actions.

"You have asked whether the Presidential Records Act of 1978 ('PRA' or 'Act') is constitutional. We conclude that it is not," wrote Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser. No hedging, no legal gymnastics—just a flat rejection of the law that has governed presidential record-keeping since Watergate.

If this opinion stands, Trump will be free to destroy documents or take them when he leaves office. Combined with his already documented violations during his first term, this could make him the most poorly documented president in modern history.

A Pattern of Destruction

The Trump administration's contempt for record-keeping isn't new. During his first term, Trump routinely tore up documents despite staffers begging him to stop. Some aides were assigned the absurd task of taping shredded papers back together to comply with the law. In other cases, Trump reportedly flushed documents down toilets.

Chief of Staff Mark Meadows allegedly fed papers into fireplaces as the first term ended. Then Trump's team packed up boxes of documents—many highly sensitive—and took them to Mar-a-Lago. When the federal government asked for them back, Trump refused. When investigators came looking, he allegedly obstructed their recovery.

Federal prosecutors included photographs in their indictment showing classified documents stored haphazardly in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom and on a ballroom stage. Trump pleaded not guilty, but his election victory led to the case being dismissed before trial. Now he wants to erase the legal basis for the accusation entirely by killing the Presidential Records Act.

Stealing Public Records for Private Profit

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith believed Trump wanted to use documents taken from the White House to further his business interests, according to Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, who obtained Smith's memo. In other words: stealing public records to make a private fortune.

The absurdity reached new heights when Trump's own Justice Department returned to him the documents the FBI had collected from Mar-a-Lago.

The Paradox of Trump's Transparency

The Trump presidency exists in a strange contradiction. In some ways, it's unusually transparent—Trump takes questions from reporters regularly, often in impromptu phone calls. He's temperamentally incapable of keeping quiet, to the point that French President Emmanuel Macron scolded him last week: "Perhaps you shouldn't talk every day."

There's less formal policy process to document because Trump has gutted bodies like the National Security Council and replaced them with his instincts, chronicled in real time on Truth Social.

But if Trump can destroy or remove documents at will, the public will never know what happened behind closed doors. The American Historical Association filed a lawsuit challenging the OLC opinion, arguing that historians "would be left with an incomplete historical record by which to professionally research, produce scholarship on, and teach U.S. history."

"Once lost, this information is irretrievable and thus the harm irreparable," the suit states. It notes that federal courts rejected identical constitutional arguments immediately after the law passed, when Richard Nixon sued to block it.

The Nixon Precedent

Nixon's presidential record shows exactly why this law matters. Nixon loyalists controlled his library for years, presenting a sanitized version of Watergate to the public. But the Presidential Records Act required that the full record be preserved.

When professional historian Tim Naftali finally took control of the library in 2006, he began presenting an accurate account and providing access to researchers. Historians could then chronicle the complete story of Nixon's career, warts and all.

Trump is the most corrupt and scandal-plagued president since Nixon—his fiascoes eclipse Nixon's in scope and brazenness. Many remain hidden or partially obscured, thanks partly to a Republican Congress far more acquiescent than the one Nixon faced.

During Watergate, the crimes were known. The question was "What did the president know and when did he know it?" With Trump, we often know what he did because he announces it on social media or in press conferences. The question is what else happened that we don't know about—and whether we'll ever be allowed to find out.

The Presidential Records Act was passed specifically to prevent presidents from hiding their actions from history. Now Trump wants to tear it up, just like he tore up documents in the Oval Office. The difference is that this time, no one will be taping the pieces back together.