Archive and historians sue White House, seek to preserve presidential records | Hacker News Reader

Archive and historians sue White House, seek to preserve presidential records

nsarchive.gwu.edu

120 pointshhs85 comments

> when the law (as amended in 2014) requires "a complete copy" to be preserved, including digital links and attachments.

I can see this as the reason why Twitter does not delete presidential twits - they don't want to break the law.

> why Twitter does not delete presidential twits - they don't want to break the law.

The law requires that the President retain and preserve records. [0]. It does not require anything of third parties like Twitter.

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/44/2203

I don't see it. Twitter could retain an archive of those tweets, while simultaneously not publishing those tweets on their website (''deleting'' them.)

It shouldn't be an issue because he's using his personal account and not tweeting from @potus.

Because the President conducted official business from his personal account (firing officials, announcing new executive orders, etc. etc.), that makes his personal account part of the official record.

Courts have already ruled that realDonaldTrump is an official account (he conducts government business on it) in a case forbidding Trump from blocking critics on his account.

Incredibly important that we have this record as a democracy

One of the things that makes a democracy (rule of the people) a democracy is that the executive is a servant rather than a king. A servant who doesn't need to hide anything, because all they're doing is what we want... right? Every President before the current one seemed to understand this principle pretty well... except for that Nixon guy.

The real problem of democracy nowadays is, who is "we"? Trump seems to think of "we" like the royal "we", not even "we, my Republicans" and definitely not "we, the 300+ million living in the US" as a President would in a perfect world.

Every president in recent history has been sued for record retention reasons.

Here is a case against Obama for instance https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/tran...

Did we read the same article?

You frame that link as a case against Obama, insinuating that his administration was trying to hide presidential records. What part of the linked article supports that exactly?

> The Obama administration already has had several opportunities to indicate its approach in this area, and initial indicators are good—with room for improvement.

> One of President Obama's "Day One" executive orders revised the implementation of the Presidential Records Act (PRA), revoking a Bush executive order that unduly restricted access to presidential records and reinstating the pre-Bush regime for implementing the Act.

My point was only that every President deals with litigation about the records placed in the Presidential Records Act. Obama was more progressive on this point (but was notably not progressive on FOIA requests). It’s effectively SOP for public records watchdog groups to sue Presidents at the end of their terms to ensure the Act is followed because its largely toothless without that action.

Incredibly important that we have this record for court cases.

Why? I'm not trying to be facile, but I imagine most of the documents will never be read, and the most popular ones will either be self-serving or foolish.

FDR made a point of leaving as little documentation as he possibly could, during a pivotal time in history, and it doesn't seem to have done any damage.

Most of the documents may never be read, but the only way to preserve the valuable documents is to preserve all the documents, lest you lose the valuable ones during your hasty initial evaluation of document worth.

Furthermore the worth of some documents may only become apparent in contexts that are not presently known or considered. Sometimes the worth of a document only becomes apparent many years later.

I am an avid reader of history, but I don't find the detailed facts especially valuable.

Can you come up with some examples of what real value (aside from entertainment/ammunition) these sorts of documents have? Having read about a number of previous presidents, I cannot think of any specific example made a difference; you might argue that the 'weight of evidence' makes a difference, but I'd be skeptical of that too.

An uncontentious example: Documents created by the Third Reich helped prosecute war criminals.

I don't think the Trump administration is going around destroying census data and prison records.

I'm also highly skeptical of the idea that any of the Nuremberg defendants would have gone free without 'private office' documents. As an example, Karl Doenitz was convicted on (somewhat dubious) charges that had nothing to do with Concentration Camps or PoW treatment.

Correspondance between officials can be relevant when determining which officials knew what, and when. This is obvious common sense stuff; it shouldn't require explaination and your resistance to it smells like motivated reasoning.

What would be my motivation? Do you think I'm involved in a 'vast right-wing conspiracy'?

There's no way to know a priori what history will end up considering important.

There were some documents on terrorist activity compiled during the Clinton administration that, at the time, were of little significance... Until it turned out their information was accurate and that terror cell crashed four planes.

FDR stablished the first presidential library, at a time that most presidential records were considered private property.

That aside, setting aside presidential documents of particularly historical times is a useful exercise.

One biography of FDR (I cannot recall which one), described a conversation with an aide (Harry Hopkins I believe), where FDR chuckled to himself at how little historians would find in the library, as he'd gotten rid of so much.

I'd like to think we've made some progress since then. Or at least aspire to...

> it doesn't seem to have done any damage.

Because you quantified that the benefit of its presence is zero.

And you would know that how?

I wonder how much of the documentation involved exists only on paper vs. only in digital format. Digital is easier to destroy, so there would be an incentive for WH staff managers with less than honorable motivations to avoid leaving a paper trail as much as possible.

Top White House staff are widely reported to use WhatsApp, Telegram, and other private, non-archivable communications methods. This is illegal[0], of course, but as Congress has abdicated jurisdiction over the Office of the Executive they are not facing consequences.

[0] https://www.co-equal.org/guide-to-congressional-oversight/co...

> Congress has abdicated jurisdiction over the Office of the Executive they are not facing consequences.

Haven’t they already done so earlier when the exact same issue came up during Hillary Clinton’s private email server affair?

The abdication to of power to the Executive has been going on longer than that. Personal IT device use has been too, things have only gotten worse since the Clinton email server debacle - which I did think was a big deal at the time, but in today's political landscape seems almost innocuous.

Right, but I mentioned Hillary Clinton email server not just as a general example of abdication of power to executive, but rather because it was pretty much about the same thing as we are discussing here. White House officials using non-official channels and apps for communication is wrong, but it was just as wrong when Hillary Clinton did it, and she didn’t face any consequences for that , or when these emails got missing instead of getting archived.

I'd say she faced the consequence of not being elected President.

It's true she didn't face jail for multiple reasons (partially including the obvious unfairness of jailing only a former Sec. of State for what, at the time and before, appeared to be something like best practice for the upper echelons of the Executive), but the public appears to have passed judgment on the topic.

I don't think that the email controversy mattered very much for the 2016 election: I think many voters simply didn't like Clinton, and the email issue serve to support preexisting beliefs rather than swaying anyone. And yes, jailing her would be rather extreme step, as the practice does appear to be rather common, if not exactly "best", like you describe it (there were explicit laws against precisely that). However, this is just another example of the fact that among the elites, legal system is just an extension of politics, a tool used to achieve specific political goals. That does not give it much legitimacy in the eyes of the common folk, who see that they are simply lied to when they are told about "equality under the law".

Supposedly it was only personal email and not official email that got deleted.

That is not supposed, given the outgoing and in-going email addressing that were routed. This is the nature of the controversy. Hard to prove, without a separate record.

That's what she argued, but I don't think that if Trump officials claim the same, the media narrative and judicial system attitude will be "oh, okay, never mind then".

That politicians on both sides engage in all kinds of wrong doing is certainly not news to me. The interesting part here is rather the difference in what each side gets when they are caught on the exact same thing.

Right, right, that was wrong on so many levels. Ivanka is doing the same damned thing, only it hasn't exactly made the news. Only difference this time, people are suing to try to force the issue that the law is followed.

Both campaigns this election relied heavily on both of those apps.

Campaigns are not supposed to follow the same procedures as the sitting president.

Whatever excuses you like for your government doing things behind closed doors away from public accountability to the electorate.

That's not what I'm looking for in my elected officials.

In order to have an elected official, there first must be an election. That is the phase during which campaigns operate.

I try hard not to make Reddit-esque jokes here but I can't help it:

username checks out.

Edit: Yes, I'll take my very deserved downvotes and go. But come on, Henry Kissinger talking about covering up Presidential crimes :-P We just need a RichardNixon to come in and concur.

I thought you were funny. Have an upvote. We need levity when talking about all of this.

There's a real flood of people downvoting opinions that they don't like and flagging in this thread for comments that are perfectly fine contributions to the discussion. It's a sign that we can't have a fair discourse in this community around certain topics.

Not our brightest day.

I don't think it's a partisan thing? The 70's is way past the political event horizon for most people. I think it's simply keeping HN free of memes but I couldn't stop giggling the connection.

For the broader point about the dangers of political discussions these days, society has lost all of its "ground rules" that keep things civil and level headed. There are no lines left to cross so tempers can run unchecked. I'm at a loss for a solution because I think the anger comes from a lack of resolution in the problems themselves. It's a spiraling feedback loop of despair.

Most of what's being downvoted isn't memes. This thread is full of brigade downvoted and dead comments. Comments espousing opinions in favor of either "side".

We are absurdly divided in our society right now and despite the guidelines of this site, folks seem not to care.

There's no reason to expect a forum to be separate from the division in the larger society.

Fora are populated by people, after all.

We can hold ourselves to a high standard. It's a choice.

I'm not convinced that it's holding ourselves to a higher standard to pretend that both sides of the divide are to be granted the assumption of equal good faith. There is too much evidence piled up that assumption is inaccurate at best and dangerous at worst.

And pretending technology to be in some way above, apart, or aside from the society using it is an error that has led to all sorts of historical horrors.

"Assume good faith" is literally in the site guidelines. Whether you believe that to be true or not, that's what's asked of us.

If you can't do that, don't respond to the comment.

While that is true, I am still unconvinced it's actually holding ourselves to a higher standard. The site is definitely allowed to demand its users hold themselves to a lower standard.

"Higher" implies "better," and giving, for example, Q-truthers bits and digital column inches may be counter-productive to the goals of this site long-term. Can't have as much cool technology talk when conspiracy theorists have disassembled Silicon Valley brick-by-brick as a side-effect of demolishing American democracy.

Preservation of materials regardless of admin is paramount to democracy.

"I won't bore you with the mechanisms under the hood on the various systems."

No, please bore us.

Some evidence that a lot of destruction of Presidential records happened in the Obama administration would be welcome too.

https://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/03/fbi-report-platte-rive...

The basic idea is that there are different information systems governed by different agencies under NARA regulations.

No one has to prove anything to you, you know? People can just say things that happened in their lives and others listening can choose to believe them or not.

Thanks for presenting this. I suspected this might be a problem across administrations rather than Trump-specific.

Agreed. We all need to keep in mind the fact that no matter which party you root for every single one of the political class is corrupt. Politics is non-theistic religion at this point.

I'd even say it's a bit more complicated than that: corruption is in the eye of the beholder in a lot of cases.

Some cases are clear; some are not. Pork barrel spending, for example.

There's been an argument that was made all throughout the Trump administration that there were honorable people in that administration who stayed on instead of quitting because they sought to minimize the damage that Trump did.

Well, now's their chance to prove that they were sincere by saving what they can of these records.

So would you support the same Trump supporters in those positions now doing the same to the Biden admin? If not, how is it any objectively different beyond your perspective that “your side is right/good, and the other side is wrong/evil”?

Or is it more reasonable that you do your job and set your own politics aside because a peaceful and unobstructed transition of power is a key to a free society? That we should not celebrate or reward unelected partisans internally sabotaging elected representatives?

Party affiliation and morality are separate things. People can want someone in the administration to act morally and not shred/destroy documents while disagreeing on policy and wanting someone else in that position.

Following the law is not a partisan act.

The fact that you think it is should hopefully give you pause.

"would you support the same Trump supporters in those positions now doing the same to the Biden admin?"

I would absolutely. Every administration's records should be saved.

I, for one, would 100% support honorable people staying instead of quitting to minimize the damage Biden does.

When a President is a leader and not a demagogue, that is called "Surrounding oneself with a good team."

Yes? Official records should be conserved.

Unfortunately, most of them were ferreted out and fired when they committed the error of breaking kayfabe by questioning or contradicting the President in public.

The ones who remain do not have career track records that suggest they are the kind of honorable people who would save a document from the fire.

A lot of greyed-out comments. Just stopping by to lurk.

It is perhaps a tall order for a post of this type, but try to focus on comments of substance.

This press release queued up and posted every four years.

[citation needed]

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