It was nearly eight years ago when Politico first reported that Donald Trump had an “enduring habit” of ripping up papers, which meant there was a White House team dedicated to the task of retrieving the pieces and literally taping them back together. By all accounts, this wasn’t especially easy: The article added that in some instances, the president would tear documents “into pieces so small they looked like confetti.”

This wasn’t just a practical mess; it was also a legal one. Politico added, “Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records.”

It was the first indication that Trump and his team had a problem with the Presidential Records Act.

Those problems persisted and metastasized, not only as the president continued to destroy records he was legally required to maintain, but also given the relevance of the Presidential Records Act to Trump’s classified documents scandal.

And now the Republican operation has arrived at a radical new position: Team Trump doesn’t want merely to sidestep the law, as it has rejected its legitimacy altogether. Axios reported:

President Trump’s Justice Department has concluded that a federal law requiring presidential records to be turned over to the government is unconstitutional, a senior White House official tells Axios.

The finding is an indication Trump will be reluctant to give all of his official records to the National Archives at the end of his term, as presidents have done for nearly a half-century under the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

The point of the post-Watergate law was to combat corruption and ensure White House transparency. Previous presidents might not have liked the Presidential Records Act, but they honored its requirements.

Trump and his Justice Department, however, have apparently concluded the law should not exist. Axios’ report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added, “It’s unclear whether the administration will try to get Congress to overturn or change the Presidential Records Act, or will challenge it in court.”

Either way, Trump has struck a major blow against White House transparency.

For all of the truly bizarre rhetoric from the Republican and his cohorts about being the “most transparent” administration in American history, Trump and his team have consistently proven otherwise, hiding all sorts of things from the public, including the president’s tax returns, the Jeffrey Epstein files, former special counsel Jack Smith’s report in the classified documents scandal, the evidence in support of the administration’s deadly military strikes against civilian boats in international waters, the recording of border czar Tom Homan allegedly accepting a Cava bag with $50,000 in cash, the list of donors to Trump’s ballroom vanity project, the White House visitor logs — and more.

The administration’s new line on the Presidential Records Act is radical, but it’s hardly a departure from the usual.

The post Another blow to White House transparency: Trump’s DOJ rejects Presidential Records Act appeared first on MS NOW.

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