The
Presidential Records Act became effective in 1981, at the start of
Ronald Reagan’s
presidency. It established a unique statutory scheme, balancing
the needs of the government, former presidents and history. The law
declares presidential records to be public property and provides that
“the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the
custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential
records.”
The
PRA lays out detailed requirements for how the archivist is to
administer the records, handle privilege claims, make the records
public, and impose restrictions on access. Notably, it doesn’t address
the process by which a former president’s records are physically to be
turned over to the archivist, or set any deadline, leaving this matter
to be negotiated between the archivist and the former president. The PRA explicitly guarantees a former president continuing access to
his papers. Those papers must ultimately be made public, but in the
meantime ... the PRA
establishes restrictions on access to a former president’s records,
including a five-year restriction on access applicable to everyone
(including the sitting president, absent a showing of need), which can
be extended until the records have been properly reviewed and processed.
Before leaving office, a president can restrict access to certain
materials for up to 12 years. ...
In
making a former president’s records available to him, the PRA doesn’t
distinguish between materials that are and aren’t classified. That was a
deliberate choice by Congress, as the existence of highly classified
materials at the White House was a given long before 1978, and the
statute specifically contemplates that classified materials will be
present—making this a basis on which a president can impose a 12-year
moratorium on public access.
