Washington — In a significant legal development, a federal judge has mandated adherence to a law that ensures the preservation of presidential records. The ruling, delivered on Wednesday, specifically targets White House staff and key advisers to President Trump.
U.S. District Judge John Bates issued a detailed 54-page decision calling for a preliminary injunction. This injunction obliges the majority of White House employees to safeguard presidential and vice presidential records under the guidelines of the Presidential Records Act. This important piece of legislation, established in 1978 as a response to the Watergate scandal, asserts public ownership over presidential records.
The order encompasses several high-profile figures, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and personnel from the National Security Council and the Council of Economic Advisers. Additionally, it applies to employees within the Executive Office of the President. However, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance are exempt from this directive. The injunction is set to commence at 9 a.m. on May 26.
This legal action arose following a memorandum opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel last month. The opinion controversially argued that the Presidential Records Act violates constitutional limits on congressional power, suggesting Mr. Trump was not obligated to comply with it.
Challenging this standpoint, two historical and government oversight organizations—the American Historical Association and American Oversight—alongside the Freedom of the Press Foundation, initiated a lawsuit. Their goal was to overturn the Justice Department’s opinion and compel White House officials to adhere to the Presidential Records Act.
Judge Bates, in his ruling, sided with the plaintiffs. He contended that the Presidential Records Act is “likely constitutional,” thereby opposing the Justice Department’s earlier assessment. This decision reinforces the importance of maintaining transparency and accountability within the highest levels of government.
“To adopt the government’s position that the Act is unconstitutional would disable Congress and future Presidents from reflecting on experience, in defiance of the very words engraved on the National Archives Building in Washington: ‘What is past is prologue,’” Bates wrote. “And while the presidency is a singularly important institution, that gravity does not free it from modest constraint. Quite the opposite. Each branch of government derives its authority from the trust placed in it by the People, and Congress has validly determined that this Act helps to maintain that trust by shining some light on the activities of the President and his aides.”
The judge noted that there has not been another Watergate-level scandal since President Richard Nixon, which “suggests that the sunshine disinfectant of the Records Act is working as intended.”
“It is not for this Court, [the Office of Legal Counsel], or the White House to second guess Congress’s lawful determination — made pursuant to at least two different enumerated powers — that citizens ought eventually to have access to these records of presidential activities carried out in their name,” Bates wrote.
The plaintiffs cheered the decision granting them emergency relief.
“Today’s ruling is an important victory for presidential accountability and for affirming what decades of law and practice already established — the constitutionality of the Presidential Records Act,” Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, said in a statement. “The court recognized the serious danger posed by the administration’s attempt to cast aside longstanding federal law governing presidential records and replace it with a system dependent largely on presidential discretion and public trust.”
Enacted four years after Nixon’s resignation, the Presidential Records Act established that presidential records belong to the U.S. government, not the president personally, and must be preserved. The law requires most of a president’s documents to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of an administration and lays out requirements for the maintenance, access and preservation of information during and after a presidency.
The law governs the records of the president, vice president and certain parts of the Executive Office of the President, such as the National Security Council. The president’s personal records, which are those of a “purely private or nonpublic character,” are excluded from the Presidential Records Act.
In their lawsuit, the American Historical Association, the largest membership association of historians in the world, and American Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog group, warned there was “strong reason” to believe Mr. Trump would attempt to keep presidential records when his term ends in January 2029.
The groups pointed to his decision at the end of his first term in early 2021 to hold onto 15 boxes of records, which the Archives fought for months to get back. The boxes contained thousands of documents, some of which were marked classified, and Mr. Trump claimed the Presidential Records Act allowed him to keep the records.
He was later indicted by former special counsel Jack Smith on more than three dozen charges for alleged mishandling of classified records, but the case ended after Mr. Trump was reelected in 2024.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s ruling.
