How Congress Can Finally Get All the Records of Abuse That Trump Kept Secret – By Molly Claflin & Dan McGrath (Slate) / Feb 2 2021
They just have to ask.
Throughout former President Donald Trump’s tenure, the White House stonewalled congressional oversight requests with impunity. Most, if not all, of these matters were clearly of legitimate interest to Congress and concerned information that Congress was entitled to receive, from troubling security clearance practices to violations of federal record-keeping laws, to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponent. Despite a dizzying number of subpoenas and litigation in federal courts, the Trump administration successfully stymied Congress from obtaining many of the White House documents it was entitled to.
Until now. Congressional committees working to enact reforms to prevent Trump-style abuses now have an easier path to obtain Trump White House documents to aid their investigations — and they can do so without requiring President Joe Biden to intervene.
Under the Presidential Records Act (PRA), as soon as a president leaves office, that president’s records (except those deemed to be personal records) are transferred to the control of the Archivist of the United States at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Although former presidents are permitted to restrict access to their records for up to 12 years after they leave office, the PRA creates a specific exception to these restrictions that permits release of the records to either house of Congress or “to any committee or subcommittee thereof if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of its business and that is not otherwise available.”
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