Washington — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered White House staff and President Trump’s top advisers to comply with a law that requires certain presidential records to be preserved.
In a 54-page decision, U.S. District Judge John Bates granted a preliminary injunction that requires most White House employees to preserve presidential and vice presidential records covered by the Presidential Records Act. The 1978 law was enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandal and established public ownership of presidential records.
Among those who must comply with Bates’ order are White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the National Security Council, Council of Economic Advisers and employees working within the Executive Office of the President. Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance are not covered by the judge’s directive. The injunction takes effect at 9 a.m. on May 26.
The decision stems from a memorandum opinion issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel last month that claimed the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congress’ power. The office said Mr. Trump therefore didn’t need to comply with it.
Two historical and government oversight groups, the American Historical Association and American Oversight, as well as the Freedom of the Press Foundation, sued to invalidate the Justice Department’s opinion. They asked the judge to order White House officials to comply with the Presidential Records Act and preserve records.
In his decision granting that request for relief, the judge wrote that the Presidential Records Act is “likely constitutional,” splitting from the Justice Department’s determination.
“To adopt the government’s position that the Act is unconstitutional would disable Congress and future Presidents from reflecting on experience, in defiance of the very words engraved on the National Archives Building in Washington: ‘What is past is prologue,'” Bates wrote. “And while the presidency is a singularly important institution, that gravity does not free it from modest constraint. Quite the opposite. Each branch of government derives its authority from the trust placed in it by the People, and Congress has validly determined that this Act helps to maintain that trust by shining some light on the activities of the President and his aides.”
The judge noted that there has not been another Watergate-level scandal since President Richard Nixon, which “suggests that the sunshine disinfectant of the Records Act is working as intended.”
“It is not for this Court, [the Office of Legal Counsel], or the White House to second guess Congress’s lawful determination — made pursuant to at least two different enumerated powers — that citizens ought eventually to have access to these records of presidential activities carried out in their name,” Bates wrote.
The plaintiffs cheered the decision granting them emergency relief.
“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,” Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, said in a statement. “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.”
Enacted four years after Nixon’s resignation, the Presidential Records Act established that presidential records belong to the U.S. government, not the president personally, and must be preserved. The law requires most of a president’s documents to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of an administration and lays out requirements for the maintenance, access and preservation of information during and after a presidency.
The law governs the records of the president, vice president and certain parts of the Executive Office of the President, such as the National Security Council. The president’s personal records, which are those of a “purely private or nonpublic character,” are excluded from the Presidential Records Act.
In their lawsuit, the American Historical Association, the largest membership association of historians in the world, and American Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog group, warned there was “strong reason” to believe Mr. Trump would attempt to keep presidential records when his term ends in January 2029.
The groups pointed to his decision at the end of his first term in early 2021 to hold onto 15 boxes of records, which the Archives fought for months to get back. The boxes contained thousands of documents, some of which were marked classified, and Mr. Trump claimed the Presidential Records Act allowed him to keep the records.
He was later indicted by former special counsel Jack Smith on more than three dozen charges for alleged mishandling of classified records, but the case ended after Mr. Trump was reelected in 2024.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s ruling.
