The Daily Fuckup

A Justice Department memo and a new White House records policy have landed the presidential records fight in federal court. CREW and the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed suit on April 24, 2026, challenging an Office of Legal Counsel opinion dated April 1 that said the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. The complaint says the White House then issued revised recordkeeping guidance on April 2 and adopted the opinion’s logic in its own policy. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1434131/dl?inline=))

The memo, signed by the Office of Legal Counsel for the counsel to the president, says the PRA exceeds Congress’s powers and intrudes on executive authority. The complaint says that conclusion was not just academic: the White House’s April 2 policy allegedly reduced obligations for preserving presidential records, especially text messages and other electronic material. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1434131/dl?inline=))

Under the PRA, incumbent presidents have custody and management responsibility for presidential records while they are in office, and the National Archives says the law is meant to govern how those records are preserved and transferred after a presidency ends. CREW and FPF say the new policy cuts against those preservation rules and ask the court to block it. ([archives.gov](https://www.archives.gov/news/topics/presidential-records-act))

The complaint also says no court has ever declared the PRA unconstitutional. It argues that letting an internal legal opinion override the statute would weaken the mandatory recordkeeping system Congress built after Watergate and blur the line between presidential preference and legal duty. That claim is still just an allegation unless and until a court rules on it. ([citizensforethics.org](https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Complaint-FPF-v.-Trump_Redacted.pdf))

The case now asks a judge to decide whether the White House can rely on the memo to change how it handles records, or whether the PRA still binds the executive branch as written. ([citizensforethics.org](https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Complaint-FPF-v.-Trump_Redacted.pdf))