Donald Trump has been ordered by a Washington D.C. court to preserve tranches of documents from his time in power.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel published an opinion stating that the Presidential Records Act, designed to ensure key government documents are preserved, was unconstitutional because it encroached on the White House’s “independence and autonomy.”
But U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said he disagreed on Wednesday, ordering several executive offices to comply with the act and keep all relevant documents.
The bitter blow to Trump takes effect next week, demanding that documents must be preserved by Trump’s immediate advisers, as well as the White House Office, the National Security Council, and DOGE.
Those government bodies must provide updates on the steps they have taken to meet the cataloging requirement.
“The original public meaning of the text of the Constitution, canons of interpretation, Supreme Court precedent, general principles of property law, and almost 50 years of practice confirm that Congress has the enumerated power to regulate presidential records under the [Constitution’s] Property Clause,” George W. Bush appointee Bates said.
The 1978 statute was first introduced as former President Nixon was ousted from the White House, and Trump’s efforts to diminish it have raised concerns about safeguarding executive power.
The Washington Post reports that after the OLC’s opinion that the PRC is unconstitutional, administration lawyers issued a new policy.
The federal government was swiftly sued by several watchdogs, including the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, American Oversight, the American Historical Association and the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
The judge said that while the courts “generally may not enjoin the president in the performance of his official duties,” he felt that “records created by the president and transmitted or transferred to [Executive Office of the president] staff would still trigger those staff members’ duties under the Act.”
He also pointed out that the first Trump administration had no problem with it, Politico reports.
The White House has suggested that it intends to appeal the decision, with its spokesperson Abigail Jackson telling the Post that Trump is “committed to preserving records from his historic time in office.”
“This ruling fundamentally misunderstands the Administration’s position and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail,” she said.
American Oversight executive Chioma Chukwu, meanwhile, told the Post that the matter “has always been about something larger than records management.”
“It is about whether a president can treat government records as personal property—deciding for himself what will be preserved, what will be disclosed, and what can simply be destroyed.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
