Following the first hearing in the AHA’s lawsuit over the Presidential Records Act (PRA), AHA executive director Sarah Weicksel appeared in a New Yorker article about the importance of the PRA to historians and the public. She explained that the preservation of presidential records is crucial for building a complete historical record for the United States.
“People might think, ‘Oh, what does this have to do with me?’ It actually has a lot to do with all of us,” Weicksel said. “Presidential records are essential for the transfer of power between Administrations and helping lawmakers understand how past decisions were made. They are essential for historians who come five, ten, fifteen, fifty, a hundred years later, asking historical questions about an Administration or about American life in the twenty-twenties. I think what’s the most important thing at stake is the ability of Americans in twenty, fifty years to be able to have access to a full history of the United States in this time period.”