May 21, 2026:
The US District Court for the District of Columbia granted emergency relief (May 20, 2026) in the American Historical Association and American Oversight’s lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s effort to evade the Presidential Records Act (PRA).
The injunction, which takes effect at 9:00 a.m. on May 26, enjoins the White House Office, the National Security Council, the US DOGE Service, and all advisors to the president to comply in full with the PRA. The order specifies that compliance includes preserving all presidential and vice presidential records as defined by the act, refraining from creating or sending any presidential or vice presidential records via text or ephemeral messaging accounts without copying an official account to preserve the records, and maintaining records retention policies that are in full compliance with the PRA. Defendants are also required to circulate a copy of the order to covered employees, and file a notice with the court on or before May 28, 2026, describing steps that have been taken to comply with the court’s order.
In response to the ruling, the American Historical Association and American Oversight and released the following statements:
Dr. Sarah Weicksel, Executive Director of the American Historical Association:
“This ruling reaffirms the essential place of presidential records in documenting our nation’s history and a core principle of the Presidential Records Act: that these records belong to the American people, not to any one individual.
“Historians—and the public who engages with and learns from the histories we write and curate—rely upon the integrity of the historical record. Americans deserve the ability to understand the entirety of their history. By requiring continued compliance with the Presidential Records Act, this preliminary injunction is an important step forward in ensuring that the documents that tell our nation’s history are preserved for future generations.”
Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight:
“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. 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.
“This case 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 court’s decision helps ensure that the American people—not the White House—retain ownership over the historical record of the presidency. It reaffirms a basic democratic principle: presidents do not get to decide unilaterally what history will remember and what the public will never see.”
The ruling centers on a request for emergency court intervention filed by the American Historical Association and American Oversight and last month, seeking the court to block the Trump administration from disregarding the PRA and to prevent the destruction or loss of presidential records. The motion argued that without urgent court intervention, records documenting presidential decision-making could be “lost to history.”
The request for an emergency court order came just days after the groups filed suit challenging a sweeping opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) declaring the PRA unconstitutional and advising that President Trump “need not further comply” with its requirements.
The motion argued that the Trump administration’s position is clearly unlawful, pointing to binding Supreme Court precedent that has already upheld Congress’s authority to require the preservation and eventual disclosure of presidential records. It emphasized that the OLC’s opinion relies on virtually no legal precedent and instead attempts to override settled law by declaring the PRA unconstitutional in its entirety — a conclusion the Supreme Court squarely rejected when it considered the constitutionality of the PRA’s predecessor after Watergate. Because the administration now has OLC’s approval to disregard the PRA, the motion warned that there is an immediate risk that records documenting official actions could be permanently lost.
Additionally, the motion emphasized that the Trump administration has refused to commit to preserving all presidential records during the course of the litigation, including records created on personal devices or sent or received on encrypted messaging platforms. The administration’s failure to commit to its basic recordkeeping obligations is especially concerning given its position that it is no longer bound by the PRA’s requirements. Without those safeguards, key records documenting government actions could be deleted, destroyed, or never captured in the first place. Because the PRA establishes that these records belong to the United States and must be preserved for eventual public access, the motion argued that any loss would cause irreparable harm that cannot be remedied after the fact.
The filing also underscored that the administration’s position could have sweeping consequences beyond the current presidency, threatening access to records from prior administrations and undermining the ability of historians, journalists, Congress, and the public to understand and evaluate government decision-making. In their motion, American Oversight and the American Historical Association asked the court to order the administration to comply with the PRA, preserve all presidential records, and prevent any destruction or loss of materials while their case proceeds.
April 7, 2026:
American Oversight and the American Historical Association have filed suit (April 7, 2026) challenging a sweeping memorandum from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that declared the Presidential Records Act (PRA) is unconstitutional and that President Donald Trump “need not further comply” with its requirements, effectively encouraging the president to violate federal law. The lawsuit argues that the memo relies on virtually no judicial authority and defies binding Supreme Court precedent outright, representing a radical attempt to nullify a law that has governed presidential records for nearly half a century.
The memo reflects a broader push to concentrate power in the presidency, at the expense of the public’s right to know. If allowed to stand, the administration’s position could have sweeping consequences far beyond President Trump’s own records, threatening to upend decades of established law governing presidential transparency. Legal experts and historians warn that applying the opinion could block public access to hundreds of millions of records — including more than 700 million White House emails — and disrupt the established process for releasing records from prior administrations.
“Since Watergate, Congress has made clear that presidential records belong to the American people — not to any one president,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight. “The DOJ is now pushing a sweeping view of presidential power that would hand control of those records to the White House — a position the Supreme Court has already rejected. The White House does not get to decide what is preserved, what is hidden, or what is destroyed. The law sets an independent process, followed by every administration for nearly half a century, to safeguard public access. If that framework is cast aside, it puts critical records at risk of being controlled, concealed, or even destroyed before the public ever has a chance to see them.”
“Since its founding in 1884, the American Historical Association has advocated for the preservation of federal records,” said Dr. Sarah Weicksel, the Association’s executive director. “The AHA’s 1910 argument in support of establishing a National Archives remains true in this current fight for preservation: these records are ‘materials which historians must use in order to ascertain the truth.’ Presidential records are essential for transparency and accountability in our democracy; they are also essential sources for researching and understanding the American past. Those records and the history they tell belong not to any individual, but to the American people.”
The PRA was enacted in 1978 in the wake of the Watergate scandal to ensure the preservation and public accessibility of presidential records. It established that presidential records are the property of the American people, not the president. In upholding a prior law governing President Richard Nixon’s records, the Supreme Court rejected claims that such requirements violate separation of powers, affirming Congress’s authority to regulate the preservation and disclosure of presidential materials.
Since then, no presidential administration — including Trump’s administration in his first term — has questioned the law’s constitutionality. As recently as last year, the Trump administration itself acknowledged in litigation that White House agencies and offices are subject to the PRA and must comply with its requirements, underscoring the abrupt and self-serving nature of its current reversal.
The lawsuit also raises urgent concerns about the administration’s current recordkeeping practices in the wake of the OLC memo. Because OLC memos are typically treated as binding across the executive branch, there is a serious risk that the National Archives and other officials will halt compliance with the PRA altogether. The White House has provided no assurances — and under its new policy may not even attempt — to comply with longstanding requirements to preserve presidential records, including restrictions on the use of personal email, text messaging, or encrypted applications for official business. Without those safeguards, records documenting key decisions and actions could be lost, deleted, or never preserved at all.
Among these records are those now eligible for public access under the PRA’s five year provision, and for which American Oversight filed a sweeping set of Freedom of Information Act requests seeking records that could provide additional details on corruption, conflicts of interest, and abuses of power during Trump’s first term — one of the most opaque and controversial presidencies in modern history.
In their complaint, American Oversight and the American Historical Association ask the court to declare the PRA constitutional, block the administration from relying on the OLC memo, and compel compliance with federal law — including the preservation of presidential records and the timely release of those records to the public. The case underscores a fundamental principle: presidential records belong to the American people, and no president has the sole authority to control or conceal them.
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