Prior to 1978, U.S. presidents could do what they pleased with the records from their time in office. They owned them.

But in 1978, the Presidential Records Act established new rules for the official records of a president. Passed in the wake of Watergate, when President Richard Nixon tried to keep incriminating materials from being made public, the law changed who legally owned the papers: It was now the American public.

Under the act’s terms, “all records must be furnished to the White House Archivist and ultimately made subject to public disclosure … and the President may not discard or destroy records without the express agreement of the Archivist.”

When he signed the act, President Jimmy Carter heralded it as a way to “make the Presidency a more open institution” and ensure “that our Government … merits the trust of the people from whom a President and his Government derive their power.”

But now the Trump administration wants to undo the reform that put presidential papers in the hands of the public.

On April 1, 2026, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, known as the OLC, released an opinion claiming that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. Its opinion says that Congress lacks authority to regulate what happens to documents maintained in the executive branch and, as a result, the Presidential Records Act violates the separation of powers.

Public interest groups and some historians responded to the OLC memo with alarm. The watchdog group American Oversight called the Presidential Records Act a bulwark against the possibility that presidents will “hide evidence of corruption, abuse of power, and misconduct from the public …” On April 6, 2026, the group filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the president from acting on the OLC memo.

Whether the Trump administration or American Oversight is........

© The Conversation