On Friday, October 16, AHA staff attended a hearing for the ongoing lawsuit in defense of the Presidential Records Act (PRA), a 1978 law designed to ensure the preservation and public accessibility of presidential records. The lawsuit was filed by the AHA and American Oversight, a nonprofit ethics watchdog group, in April 2026.
The hearing, held before a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and covered in the New York Times, allowed arguments from the Trump administration’s lawyer as to why the law supposedly oversteps Congressional authority following the May 20, 2026, injunction requiring the White House Office, the National Security Council, the US DOGE Service, and advisors to the president to comply in full with the PRA. The judges, who seemed unconvinced by the administration’s claims, also heard from Daniel Jacobson, the lawyer representing the AHA and American Oversight. Jacobson continued to rebut the administration’s arguments, including their claims that the PRA has a chilling effect on executive branch communications and that it imposes uniquely overbearing regulation onto the executive branch.