9

The Presidential Records Act mandates the preservation of all presidential records. At least in theory this means that the only Presidential communications immune from further scrutiny are phone calls (which are not recorded) and verbal in-person conversations. Presumably this might create a bit of a bias against written communication, as there's plenty of discussions that the White House might not want to be exposed in the future.

Has there been any academic research on the effects of this Act on communications within the White House since 1971?

Improve this question
15
  • 2
    You can find the legal definition of presidential materials/records here - archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records.html, then narrow down your question to be more focused.
    – r13
    Aug 11, 2022 at 21:36
  • Even though the White House doesn't record POTUS's phone calls, they can be recorded by others. That's how we all heard Trump's call to Brad Raffensperger where he asked him to "find 11,780 votes". Is this subject to the PRA?
    – Barmar
    Aug 12, 2022 at 20:01
  • 1
    @Barmar yes and it gives an incentive to not make any records whatsoever
    – JonathanReez
    Aug 12, 2022 at 20:35
  • @r13 question seems pretty focussed and looking up the definition of PRA doesn't enlighten us all that much on whether POTUSs have adapted to it by privileging communication channels that are off the record for PRA. I was wondering if similar studies had been carried out on how companies communicate internally given how often smoking guns are found during email discovery. But didn't see anything beyond a whole lot of provider solutions to perform that discovery. Still, it seems to me that "Don't recall those Pintos" or "Cheat that NO2 test" comms would be kept verbal nowadays.
    – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
    Aug 13, 2022 at 1:13
  • 1
    @ItalianPhilosophers4Monica You seem to have a good grab on the question the OP focused on, why not write something about it to lighten others?
    – r13
    Aug 13, 2022 at 1:30

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .