Federal Judge Orders White House to Preserve Head of State Call Records (National Security Archive)

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson yesterday ordered the White House to preserve all records relating to meetings and phone calls with foreign leaders, as well as all records on White House practices and policies for creating and keeping such records.

The unexpected order came in response to the lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) together with the National Security Archive and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, filed in May 2019, seeking a declaratory judgment that the Presidential Records Act required President Trump to create and preserve records of his conversations with foreign leaders.  Press reports had indicated that no such records existed for at least five meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, one meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and a meeting with Saudi Arabian Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.

Read more here. The National Security Archives blog had several exciting posts this past month, including this one about records the Archives obtained being featured in a documentary about the 1953 coup in Iran.