Does the president own presidential records?
4/20/202621 min
The Justice Department has declared that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional and therefore, President Trump is allowed to destroy any records from his time in office. We discuss how the move could make it harder to hold presidents accountable.
This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, Supreme Court and justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Tamara Keith· Host0:16
[upbeat music] Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith, I cover politics.
Carrie Johnson· Co-host0:25
I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department and Supreme Court.
Domenico Montanaro· Co-host0:28
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
Tamara Keith· Host0:31
And today on the show, the Trump administration says a law designed to preserve presidential records is unconstitutional, and therefore President Trump doesn't have to follow it. Carrie, what is this law and what does it say exactly?
Carrie Johnson· Co-host0:48
This law is called the Presidential Records Act. Uh, President Jimmy Carter signed it all the way back in 1978, and it makes clear that documents that are created or received by the president or the vice president are actually materials that belong to the government. The law also allows for or requires a transfer of those materials when the administration ends to the National Archives. And this all came about because of a whole bunch of fighting during the Richard Nixon era. Remember, um, Nixon fought all the way to the Supreme Court an effort by special prosecutors to get the tapes that he made, the recordings he made in the White House. And then after he left, after he resigned, um, he