Trump Claims He Can Destroy Presidential Records -- Watchdog Groups Sue to Stop Him

The Trump administration just announced it believes the president can destroy, hide, or keep any official White House documents he wants -- and two watchdog groups are suing to stop him.

The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo last week claiming the Presidential Records Act -- the post-Watergate law requiring preservation of presidential documents -- violates the Constitution by limiting Trump's "independence and autonomy." The memo bluntly stated: "The President need not further comply with its dictates."

Translation: Trump thinks he can shred, burn, or stuff official government records into boxes at Mar-a-Lago, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

The American Historical Association and American Oversight filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Washington, D.C., arguing the memo is a blatant attempt to obstruct transparency and accountability. "As of this moment, the Administration believes that the President is legally free to destroy records of his official government conduct, or even spirit away the records for his own future personal use," the lawsuit states.

The groups point out that these aren't Trump's personal diary entries -- they're records of official government business, created by nearly 1,000 White House employees using taxpayer funds on government property. "In the Administration's view, the records of the official activities of the President... belong to the President personally, and not to the American people," the lawsuit continues. "Government for the people, by the people, and of the people this is not."

A Law Born From Watergate -- And Already Upheld by the Supreme Court

Congress passed the Presidential Records Act after Watergate specifically to prevent presidents from treating official documents as personal property. Before that, Richard Nixon tried to destroy evidence of his crimes. The law makes clear: presidential records belong to the public, not the president.

The Supreme Court already ruled on this in 1977, upholding the PRA's predecessor as constitutional. The Trump administration's memo conveniently ignores that precedent.

"Since Watergate, Congress has made clear that presidential records belong to the American people -- not to any one president," said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight. "The White House does not get to decide what is preserved, what is hidden, or what is destroyed."

Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, emphasized the stakes beyond legal accountability: "Presidential records are essential for transparency and accountability in our democracy; they are also essential sources for researching and understanding the American past. Those records and the history they tell belong not to any individual, but to the American people."

Trump Already Stole Presidential Records Once

This isn't theoretical. Trump already violated the Presidential Records Act by taking classified documents when he left office in 2021 and storing them at Mar-a-Lago -- including in a bathroom and a ballroom where events were held.

Former special counsel Jack Smith investigated Trump for those violations. Speaking before a House committee earlier this year, Smith said his team obtained "powerful evidence that showed President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a bathroom and a ballroom where events and gatherings took place."

Now Trump's own Justice Department is trying to give him legal cover to do it again -- or worse, to destroy records entirely so no one can ever prove what happened.

The lawsuit makes the stakes crystal clear: without the Presidential Records Act, there's no way to hold presidents accountable for corruption, abuse of power, or criminal conduct. Documents disappear. Evidence vanishes. History gets rewritten by whoever controls the shredder.

The case will test whether a president can simply declare a law unconstitutional because it's inconvenient -- and whether the American people have any right to know what their government does in their name.