NEWS: Sen. Schiff, Leader Schumer, Lead Fight Against Trump Admin’s Claim that Presidential Records Act is Unconstitutional, Demand Compliance with Law

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) led 11 Senators, including all Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in demanding answers from the White House on the administration's recent legal opinion declaring the Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 unconstitutional.

Enacted after Watergate, the PRA provides transparency on official duties at the White House. It establishes public ownership of official White House records, including on activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies created by presidents and their staff, ensuring records are preserved and maintained.

The Senators are pressing the White House Counsel to guarantee the White House will abide by the PRA, regardless of the recent Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)opinion that declared the law "invalid in its entirety" in opposition to longstanding Supreme Court precedent and subsequent memorandum loosening White House preservation policies.

"Regardless of the Executive Branch's internal deference to OLC opinions, OLC does not have the authority to override Supreme Court rulings or unilaterally overturn laws passed by Congress. The PRA remains binding law, and Congress was well within its power when it enacted the PRA," the Senators wrote.

"We are deeply concerned that, pursuant to the April 1, 2026, OLC opinion and your subsequent April 2, 2026, memorandum, the President and his staff will unlawfully destroy important records covered by the PRA, significantly harming Congress' ability to fulfill its constitutional oversight responsibilities and thwarting the purpose and letter of the PRA as enacted and amended by Congress and multiple Administrations," the Senators continued.

The letter to White House Counsel David Warrington was signed by Schiff; Senate Democratic Leader Schumer; U.S. Senator and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.); and Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawai'i), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.).

The full text of the letter can be found here and below:

Dear Mr. Warrington:

We are writing to express serious concern regarding the recent Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion declaring the Administration's view that the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (PRA) is unconstitutional and thus, "invalid in its entirety." This opinion was rendered at the request of your office which - taken in combination with the White House's rapid issuance of a new records-preservation memorandum - indicates that ending compliance with the PRA is a priority for the White House. Further, the OLC opinion does not appear connected to a dispute on the interpretation of federal law among multiple agencies or any contemplated policy change that necessitates clarification of the law.

The OLC opinion states that the PRA is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congress's enumerated and implied powers and "aggrandizes" the Legislative Branch. On April 2, 2026, your office seized on this opinion to implement a records policy that effectively replaces mandatory preservation requirements with discretionary guidelines. We are particularly troubled that this new memo weakens safeguards by establishing narrow, subjective criteria for preserving personal device communications, effectively granting staff the discretion to selectively preserve historical records.

As you are aware, the PRA was enacted in response to the Watergate scandal and sought to provide much-needed transparency to the execution of official duties at the White House without interfering with them. The PRA achieved this by establishing public ownership of records created by presidents and their staff in the course of discharging their official duties. Under the PRA, the United States "shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records." The PRA requires a President to take all necessary steps "to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of the President's constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are preserved and maintained as Presidential records."

The PRA also imposes a multi-step process on the President, including obtaining the written views of the National Archivist and providing 60 days' notice to Congress, before any Presidential records may be destroyed. This process reflects the care Congress took to ensure that historically important records are protected by preventing the President from negligently, recklessly, or willfully destroying this property of the U.S. government. In further recognition of the important public interest in maintaining the public records associated with the work of the President, Congress modernized the PRA to regulate the use of non-official electronic message accounts by White House personnel.

The PRA provides for the orderly retention and, when appropriate, public dissemination of presidential records. Under the PRA, when a President leaves office, the National Archivist assumes responsibility for the control of the former President's records and creates an affirmative duty to make the records of a former president "available to public as rapidly and completely as possible." At the same time, the PRA provides the President with an opportunity to restrict public access to records for up to twelve years that are privileged, classified, or otherwise confidential. Thus, Congress took great care in the drafting of the PRA to balance the President's need to restrict access to sensitive material and material unrelated to his official duties, with the public's right to transparency and Congress' authority to conduct oversight on the most powerful elected office in the nation.

OLC typically provides advice to the Executive regarding "legal issues of particular complexity and importance or those about which two or more agencies are in disagreement." OLC is also responsible for reviewing and commenting on "the constitutionality of pending legislation."

The April 1, 2026, OLC opinion is anomalous in that, for the first time ever, OLC has declared the PRA unconstitutional in its entirety, coming to that conclusion in direct opposition to longstanding Supreme Court precedent. Regardless of the Executive Branch's internal deference to OLC opinions, OLC does not have the authority to override Supreme Court rulings or unilaterally overturn laws passed by Congress. The PRA remains binding law, and Congress was well within its power when it enacted the PRA.

We are deeply concerned that, pursuant to the April 1, 2026, OLC opinion and your subsequent April 2, 2026, memorandum, the President and his staff will unlawfully destroy important records covered by the PRA, significantly harming Congress' ability to fulfill its constitutional oversight responsibilities and thwarting the purpose and letter of the PRA as enacted and amended by Congress and multiple Administrations.

Accordingly, please confirm by May 8, 2026 that the White House will continue to abide by the lawfully-enacted PRA regardless of the April 1, 2026, OLC opinion. Additionally, given the first Trump Administration's mismanagement and delay in producing records to NARA, and President Trump's unlawful personal retention and mismanagement of classified documents and other government records after his term expired, we request a briefing on the Trump Administration's records management procedures under the PRA in anticipation of the end of his second Administration on January 20, 2029.

We look forward to your response.

###