In a clear win for government transparency, National Security Archive et. al. v. Donald J. Trump et. al. lawsuit prevented the Trump administration from what was feared to be a wholesale destruction and loss of presidential records including the failure to preserve records — including President Trump’s reported ripping up of documents in the Oval Office — former aide Steve Bannon’s use of disappearing instant messages to communicate with campaign embeds at the agencies, private email use by Ivanka Trump and other top officials, and the routine use of encrypted WhatsApp messages by Jared Kushner and others.
Thank you co-plaintiffs National Security Archive, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the American Historical Association (AHA), and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) for stepping up to save the official White House record for historians, students, and future litigators!
The National Security Archive et. al. v. Donald J. Trump et. al. lawsuit, filed December 1, 2020 to prevent a possible bonfire of records in the Rose Garden, achieved a formal litigation hold on White House records that lasted all the way through the transition and Inauguration Day, the preservation of controversial WhatsApp messages, and a formal change in White House records policy.
…The lawsuit argued that Trump White House policy that only saved via screen shots the instant messages of government business – such as Jared Kushner’s negotiations with Saudi prince bin Salman – failed to capture the complete record that the law required. Plaintiffs pointed to repeated media accounts of White House failures to preserve records, including President Trump’s reported ripping up of documents in the Oval Office, former aide Steve Bannon’s use of disappearing instant messages to communicate with campaign embeds at the agencies, private email use by Ivanka Trump and other top officials, and the routine use of encrypted WhatsApp messages by Kushner and others.
Justice Department lawyers defending against the lawsuit have informed plaintiffs that White House records managers have now successfully deployed an archival tool in the WhatsApp software to capture full copies including links and attachments of the WhatsApp threads in Kushner’s account and other WhatsApp users at the White House.
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