White House tells court it’s preserving presidential records even though DOJ said law is unconstitutional | CNN Politics

White House staff are still following the “preservation” mandates of the Presidential Records Act, the Justice Department told a federal court as it pushes back on a new lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s disavowal of a Watergate-era documents law. The filings made public the White House’s official approach to records retention now that the Justice Department – via an opinion from the department Office of Legal Counsel – told President Donald Trump that he no longer had to comply with the Presidential Records Act. White House Counsel David Warrington issued a memo on April 2, the day after the OLC opinion was published, that was released publicly with Tuesday’s court filings. The law requires that presidents and their staffs preserve records related to government activity, and that those records be turned over to the National Archives at the end of each administration – with provisions of the law eventually making some of those documents available to the public. The new White House memo did not address what steps President Trump or Vice President JD Vance should take to preserve records, nor did it lay out plans to ultimately turn White House documents o