White House Allowed Officials’ Text Messages to Be Deleted, Lawsuit Says; The New York Times, April 24, 2026

 Minho Kim, The New York Times; White House Allowed Officials’ Text Messages to Be Deleted, Lawsuit Says

Two watchdogs say internal White House guidance that text messages need not be preserved unless “they are the sole record of official decision-making” contradicted the law.

"Two government watchdogs sued President Trump and the White House on Friday over internal guidance that instructed that some text messages exchanged between officials could be deleted, despite a law generally mandating the preservation of presidential records.

The watchdogs, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, also asked a federal judge to overrule a separate but related Justice Department memo, which declared unconstitutional a longstanding federal law requiring safeguarding of presidents’ records, including text messages. The White House guidance cited the memo.

Their lawsuit comes amid a torrent of accusations that the Trump administration has disregarded record-keeping and document disclosure required by law, even as the president and his officials have sought to transform the government and push the legal bounds of their power. They have displayed a particular willingness to skirt record-keeping requirements on text messages exchanged among top officials.

In their complaint, the two watchdogs said the “deficient instructions” from the White House would “result in the irreparable loss or destruction” of presidential records."

Obama claimed to want transparency. His actions suggest the opposite; Guardian, 3/9/16

Trevor Timm, Guardian; Obama claimed to want transparency. His actions suggest the opposite:

"The Obama administration has taken a lot of well-deserved criticism over the years for claiming to be the most transparent presidency ever while actually being remarkably opaque, but they’ve now reached a new low: newly released documents show they aggressively lobbied Congress to kill bipartisan transparency reform that was based on the administration’s own policy.

In a move open government advocates are calling “ludicrous”, the administration “strongly opposed” the passage of bipartisan Freedom of Information Act (Foia) reform behind closed doors in 2014. The bill was a modest and uncontroversial piece of legislation which attempted to modernize the law for the internet age and codify President Obama’s 2009 memo directing federal agencies to adopt a “presumption of openness”.

Through a Foia lawsuit, the Freedom of the Press Foundation (the organization I work for) obtained a six-page talking points memo that the Justice Department distributed to House members protesting virtually every aspect of the proposed legislation in incredibly harsh language – despite the fact that some of the provisions were based almost word-for-word on the Justice Department’s own supposed policy (you can see a side-by-side comparison here).

Worse, Vice’s Jason Leopold is also reporting that the administration is conducting similar lobbying efforts around this year’s attempt to reform Foia in time for the law’s 50th anniversary this summer.

This is a shameful move by an administration that is constantly touting its open government and transparency bona fides despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary."