Overview

• The Trump administration's use of auto-deleting messaging apps like Signal circumvents federal record-keeping laws, raising concerns about transparency and historical preservation.
• Historians caution that President Trump may leave one of the least documented presidencies in U.S. history, complicating future accountability and scholarship.
• White House stenographers record Trump's public remarks, but many transcripts remain unreleased, creating significant gaps in the official record.
• Trump fired National Archivist Colleen Shogan and appointed Marco Rubio as acting Archivist, a move criticized as undermining the independence of the National Archives.
• The 2014 expansion of the Presidential Records Act includes electronic communications, but enforcement struggles to address modern tools like auto-delete apps.