That was Nixon’s comment to David Frost , and seems to be the Justice Department’s response to civil suits raised regarding the Trump administration hypothetically destroying records that it’s required by law to retain. Such shenanigans have been mentioned in various news reports, but an effort to put the White House under injunction to obey the Presidential Record Act is, the DoJ argues, improper.
“Courts cannot review the President’s compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” states Trump’s motion to dismiss. Justice Department attorneys handling the case refer to a 1991 decision out of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — Armstrong v. Bush — for the proposition that “Congress … sought assiduously to minimize outside interference with the day-to-day operations of the President and his closest advisors and to ensure executive branch control over presidential records during the President’s term in office,” and so “it is difficult to conclude that Congress intended to allow courts, at the behest of private citizens, to rule on the adequacy of the President’s records management practices or overrule his records creation, management, and disposal decisions.”
In other words, legal or not, whatever the Administration is doing with record requirements cannot be reviewed by courts because it would interfere with the operation of the White House.
Nice legal protection if you can get it.
[h/t +Stan Pedzick]
Donald Trump Can Destroy Records Without Judicial Review, Justice Department Tells Court
Deleted tweets? Purges of phone records? The erasing of secretly recorded conversations? The Trump Administration tells a D.C. judge that courts can’t review compliance with preservation laws.
That building may spout smoke like a 19th Century locomotive.
🚂🚃🚃🚃🚃