A federal appeals court in Washington is set to hear arguments on Friday in which administration lawyers claim that papers created in the White House belong to Donald Trump, not the American people. The case challenges the Presidential Records Act, a federal law in place since 1978 that was enacted after disputes with Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. Six months ago, the Justice Department moved to invalidate the law, and the case could eventually reach the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.
Conservative lawyer Michael Edney described the law as an "overbroad statutory incursion" into executive branch powers, arguing it belongs to a series of post-Watergate statutes that should be pared back. For about 200 years, presidents decided for themselves what to do with their records, and every president since Nixon has complied with the law until this year. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the act is unconstitutional and violates the separation of powers.
The dispute follows Trump's indictment on obstruction of justice charges for allegedly stockpiling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. That case was thrown out on technical grounds related to the prosecutor's appointment and was later dropped after Trump won reelection. Nikhel Sus of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued over the move, warned that accepting the administration's position would leave the public with no right of access to the president's papers. Senior U.S. District Judge John Bates had already ruled against the White House this year.
Former officials stress the importance of the records. John Bellinger, a legal adviser to the National Security Council under George W. Bush, said presidential papers are often the only record of what leaders have said to one another, and that losing access would leave future presidents at a terrible disadvantage.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing