Trump’s Office Of Legal Counsel Says Trump Doesn’t Need To Follow The Presidential Records Rules
from the laws-are-for-other-people dept
Leave it to the president that makes us nostalgic for Nixon-era corruption to claim that a law Nixon made necessary is no longer a law.
The Presidential Records Act was summoned into existence by Nixon’s resignation and his subsequent efforts to destroy records generated by his office as he was fumbling his way towards impeachment. It’s only fitting that the only president to challenge this law is someone who makes Nixon’s corruption look semi-competent.
No one was asking — at least outside of the White House — for the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to weigh in on this law. But weigh in it did, tipping the scale heavily towards “Let Trump do whatever he wants,” despite Supreme Court precedent to the contrary. (h/t Jamal Greene)
The OLC issued this opinion [PDF] last Thursday. It basically says Trump isn’t obligated to turn over records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) following his second term as president. Presumably, the opinion is also retroactive, which would prevent NARA from continuing to demand records from his first presidency — something that has led to a lot of the litigation Trump engaged in following his 2020 loss, much of which is quoted by the DOJ OLC in support of elevating Trump above the law yet again.
I’m sure the Supreme Court — the one “stacked” by Trump himself — has inured itself Trump’s steady stream of verbal abuse at this point. But I’m pretty sure the OLC telling the Supreme Court its own precedent is invalid isn’t going to win the DOJ any friends when it comes time to defend this legal opinion in court.
Nonetheless, that’s what the OLC does here. Repeatedly.
Nixon v. Administrator is not only distinguishable. It was also wrong in concluding that the PRMPA’s “regulation of the disposition of Presidential materials within the Executive Branch” was not “a violation of the principle of separation of powers.”
[…]
Nixon v. Administrator was also mistaken in reasoning that the PRMPA was not “unduly disruptive of the Executive Branch” […]
[…]
Nixon v. Administrator was wrong to suggest that the executive privilege provisions of the PRMPA avoided separation of powers concerns, and those concerns apply even more strongly to the PRA.
That’s the sort of thing that only a true Trump acolyte could write. That acolyte would be T. Elliot Glaser, assistant attorney general, who was previously best know for this:
In 2020, Gaiser worked as legal counsel for Donald Trump‘s 2020 presidential campaign.[14] White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany testified before the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack that she considered him an expert on constitutional law. Gaiser worked on election litigation after the 2020 presidential election and produced a speech that rejected the results of the election. According to McEnany, the speech appeared similar to one Trump later delivered, and Gaiser “mentioned in passing” the theory that vice president Mike Pence could refuse to recognize electors from certain states.[4]
It’s great to know that yet another election denier is in a federal position of power, especially with mid-term elections only months away. Prior to this, Gaiser clerked for three federal judges: Edith Jones, Neomi Rao, and (of course) Justice Samuel Alito.
Expecting Gaiser to do anything else but propel forward the administration’s presidents-are-kings-actually theory of executive power is delusional. So is Gaiser’s opinion, which simply says everything prior to this legal memo — including Supreme Court precedent regarding a law that’s nearly 50 years old — is wrong.
Either the administration is certain there will never be another regime change or it’s too stupid to realize Democratic Party presidents will have access to the same theory of power being pushed here, which is going to make them look like idiots when it’s being used against them. Neither option is preferable, and there’s a good chance it’s a 50/50 blend of both.
The silver lining is that this isn’t enforceable in any way. But it will have immediate negative effects. It will make freeing up documents from Trump’s term more difficult. And it will keep NARA from attempting to archive anything its does manage to obtain until the (completely illegitimate) legal questions are settled.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, accountability, congress, doj, king shit, olc, presidential records act, transparency, trump administration
Comments on “Trump’s Office Of Legal Counsel Says Trump Doesn’t Need To Follow The Presidential Records Rules”
You can’t go broke betting on “all of the above” with this administration. That said, have the Rethugnicans ever actually cared about governmental transparency, even during a Democratic administration? I can’t remember that heppening, but I may have forgotten.
Hahaha
Americans deserve all the suffering they voted for.
But not really contrary. The realpolitik precedent is that the Supreme Court might, at worst, write some harsh word’s about Trump’s actions. You know what that is? Publicity. Correction: free publicity.
Remember that Nixon never paid a cent and never spent a day in prison, in relation to the cited offense or any other, and continued to live a relatively untroubled life afterward.
He’s going to use it with the presidential immunity decision to destroy records so they can’t be recovered. If the OLC backs it, then it can be considered an official act. The next president trying OLC employees for corruption is however, still allowed.
What’s really rich about this is how much it leans on the Enumeration of Powers in Article I and Ii.
This is a discussion Trump probably should avoid… because if he really really wants to go by the strict enumeration of powers, then Congress would problem like a word about the power of the purse and the auto declare war.
Are we sure
That we want to know what he REALLY has done? Or was trying to do?
Re:
Absolutely. And we need to play the documentation in theaters and have the Republican lawmakers and tech bro CEOS watch it the way German citizens were forced to tour Nazi death camps after the war to cement the fact that they enabled a multitude of crimes, including genocide and mass murder. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be enabling such acts if they were capable of shame or ethical self-reflection, so it wouldn’t be effective.
What about Executive usurpation of Congressional powers, with or without the assistance of Congress? Or just regular old overreach – which seems to be much more an Executive than Congressional issue historically as well as statistically (1 jackass vs 535 jackasses in 2 parties in a bicameral legislature.)
Anyway, i am surprised they just don’t declare everything from the Executive to be trade secrets.
The reason Nixon wasn’t punished in any way is because he was immediately pardoned by Ford, the only US President to have never been elected to the office (he was appointed by Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew as VP when Agnew resigned for corruption, and became President when Nixon resigned). Thus the great American tradition of not holding certain groups of people accountable for their actions continued, just like the traitortot has thus far avoided accountability for the vast majority of his crimes.
It’s worth remembering what happened in his first admin. Not just the Jack Smith stuff- There were reports of him ripping up/eating/burning documents in his first few months. It ended up getting completely memory holed.