Suppose I work at the White House. The president tells me that he wants to make a phone call and not leave any record of it. Is there actually a way to do this, or is there some system in place in which everything that comes in and out of the White House is logged by an independent body? Is trying to re-classify calls as top secret the best that the White House can do?
Note that I am not asking about legality. I am asking about whether there is a practical way to do it.
[Answer to questions in the question body.]
Suppose I work at the White House.
Then you would have been notified that, beginning in January 2018, personal cell phones and other electronic devices are prohibited from the West Wing, except for the president.
The president tells me that he wants to make a phone call and not leave any record of it.
The president would use their own personal cell phone. If the call is personal, there is no requirement for record. If the call is official and no record is made, then it would violate the Presidential Records Act.
In July 2018, Business Insider reported that President Trump gave his personal cellphone number to various world leaders, having unrecorded conversations with them completely without U.S. officials' knowledge.
Is there actually a way to do this, or is there some system in place in which everything that comes in and out of the White House is logged by an independent body?
The president using a personal cell phone is not logged.
Are all presidential telephone calls logged at the White House?:
[The answerer notes having Worked in the White House for six years]
Yes and No. All Presidential calls that are made through the switchboard are logged both in and out.
But what he makes off his private line are not logged by the switchboard operators. Although we all know that records do exist of all calls and texts. His private calls would be very hard to gain access to. There is nothing to stop him from having a burner prepaid cell phone other than guidelines. ...
Is trying to re-classify calls as top secret the best that the White House can do?
The call that was re-classified was an official call and there was a record.
[Answer to title question.]
Is there any independent body that oversees the White House to prevent it from destroying records?
There is no independent body for that purpose.
Places the responsibility for the custody and management of incumbent Presidential records with the President.
Allows the incumbent President to dispose of records that no longer have administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value, once he or she has obtained the views of the Archivist of the United States [see below] on the proposed disposal.
In June 2018, Politico [see below] reported that President Donald Trump frequently and routinely would tear up papers he received, resulting in government officials taping them together for archiving to ensure that Trump did not violate the Presidential Records Act.
Requires that the President and his staff take all practical steps to file personal records separately from Presidential records.
Archivist of the United States:
The Archivist is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate and is responsible for safeguarding and making available for study all the permanently valuable records of the federal government, including the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, which are displayed in the Archives' main building in Washington, D.C.
From Politico Meet the guys who tape Trump's papers back together, 06/10/2018.
Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records.
But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice. Instead, they chose to clean it up for him, in order to make sure that the president wasn’t violating the law.
Staffers had the fragments of paper collected from the Oval Office as well as the private residence and send it over to records management across the street from the White House for Lartey and his colleagues to reassemble.
