When President Donald Trump or a member of his staff deletes a tweet, they may be violating federal law, two top congressmen warned the White House this week.
Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to White House counsel Don McGahn on Wednesday expressing concerns about the Trump administration’s record keeping habits and its nontransparent use of social media and other forms of electronic communication.
One example the lawmakers cited is Trump’s habit of misspelling and then deleting tweets, which they warned “could pose a violation to the Presidential Records Act” if the deleted tweets are not archived.
“Many of the messages sent from these accounts are likely to be presidential records and therefore must be preserved,” they wrote, referring to both Trump’s personal @realDonaldTrump account and his official @POTUS account. “It has been reported, however, that President Trump has deleted tweets, and if those tweets were not archived, it could pose a violation of the Presidential Records Act,” Chaffetz and Cummings wrote in the letter.
Trump sometimes deletes tweets due to spelling errors. Over the weekend, he deleted two tweets that misspelled the word “hereby.”
Trump spelled “hereby” wrong. Took two minutes to correct it. Got it wrong again. Let’s see if third time’s the charm — Marlow Stern
Serious question. Can Trump legally delete Tweets? Presidential Records Act has to come into play here — Matt Spence.
So Please President Trump, Stop deleting your tweets so you don’t violate the ‘presidential records act’
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