Do White House records belong to Trump? Appeals judges sound sceptical
At the federal appeals court in Washington, the administration's claim that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional met strong pushback from two of the three judges.
Symbolic image · Photo: David Samuel, User:Hellodavey1902 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
The Trump administration's challenge to the Presidential Records Act met scepticism at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The 1978 law makes White House records government property that goes to the National Archives. Justice Department lawyer John Bailey called it an "unconstitutional intrusion on the presidency" at Friday's hearing, according to The New York Times, arguing that a former president is a better custodian of records than a successor. Judge Cornelia Pillard countered that this was "such a sad and such a partisan view."
Judge Patricia Millett also doubted that treating records as the president's property would protect them better, and Pillard warned that an heir could sell records to a foreign government such as China. Trump appointee Judge Justin Walker, by contrast, voiced concern that adversaries could use AI to assemble a "mosaic" of confidential information from mass-preserved records. The American Historical Association and watchdog groups such as CREW brought the case. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis called the law "a clear violation of the separation of powers"; according to NPR, the case could ultimately reach the Supreme Court.