Trump Guts Presidential Records Law While Planning Hotel Disguised as Library

Destroying Evidence, One Legal Opinion at a Time

Last week, the Trump administration published a 52-page legal opinion declaring the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional. The author? T. Elliot Gaiser, an Ohio-based election denier and former clerk to Justice Samuel Alito who was heavily involved in attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Gaiser's argument is breathtaking in its bad faith: Congress has no right to ask presidents to preserve records, he claims. Keeping documents serves "no legislative purpose" and could "impede" the president's day-to-day performance. Legal experts across the spectrum have called the opinion exactly what it is -- a transparent attempt to provide legal cover for destroying evidence.

The Presidential Records Act was passed in 1978 specifically to prevent another Nixon-style coverup. After Watergate, Congress first passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act in 1974 to take custody of Nixon's tapes and papers. Nixon sued. The Supreme Court rejected his claims and affirmed "the American people's ability to reconstruct and come to terms with their history."

Congress then passed the broader Presidential Records Act. No president until Trump found it remotely burdensome to preserve their own records.

A Presidential Library With No Books

The same week, Trump unveiled AI-generated renderings of his planned "presidential library" -- a glitzy waterfront skyscraper in Miami's Biscayne Bay that looks less like an archive and more like a hotel complex. Trump made the quiet part loud: "I don't believe in building libraries or museums."

The building is envisioned with a golden statue of Trump himself and a 747 jet in the atrium. What accomplishments would there be to display? The pardons for violent January 6 insurrectionists? The firings of FBI and Justice Department officials who investigated his crimes? The database of January 6 charges and videos that mysteriously disappeared from the DOJ website?

Trump's indifference to archiving is not new. After his first term, he simply took classified documents to Mar-a-Lago. Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on those 40 felony counts for mishandling classified documents will never see the light of day, thanks to Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon.

Last year, Trump fired the first woman to permanently hold the role of Archivist of the United States, replacing her with Marco Rubio -- who apparently has nothing else to do. He also enlisted the president of the Richard Nixon Foundation, because irony is dead.

Impunity as Policy

Trump's sycophants boast about running "the most transparent administration in history." What has been transparent from day one is Trump's promise of impunity to anyone willing to break the law on his behalf.

Even the most violent January 6 rioters received pardons. Officials who investigated them were purged from federal law enforcement. According to reports, Corey Lewandowski at the Department of Homeland Security bragged he could do whatever he wanted because Trump would pardon him. (Lewandowski has denied this, for what that's worth.)

Whether fired officials like Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi secured pardons before their exits remains unclear. If Trump wants to keep them under control -- and prevent them from leaking documents on their way out -- he likely made no promises. He may simply forget about former underlings who need protection from prosecution.

What Comes Next

The question is how to counter politically motivated amnesia and preserve accountability when the president is actively working to erase his own record.

Democrats can push explicitly for preserving records and shame those scrubbing websites and removing historical documentation. That's unlikely to move the most shameless administration in U.S. history, but it matters for the record.

They can also begin designing something like a truth commission. The January 6 committee, often dismissed as a failure, did compelling work questioning witnesses and producing videos that clearly documented the violence GOP members now wish to forget.

The pardon power itself is harder to constrain. The founders borrowed it from the British monarchy, assuming that a president who abused it would face impeachment and that -- as Alexander Hamilton put it -- "the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget circumspection."

Legal scholars have gestured at the possibility of suing over corrupt pardons, but the Supreme Court's 2024 decision granting presidents virtually total immunity makes that a non-starter. Gaiser's impunity-on-demand opinion exploits that ruling to its fullest.

What's at stake is not just pedantic historical record-keeping. It's the public's right to accountability. It's the American people's ability to reconstruct and come to terms with what happened during this administration.

Trump is betting that if there are no records, there can be no reckoning. He's counting on amnesia, erasure, and a golden statue to replace the boring work of preserving evidence.

The work of accountability starts with refusing to forget.