Watchdog group asks judge to preserve White House communications with foreign leaders

A watchdog group has asked a federal judge to act immediately to force the Trump White House to preserve all records of communications between the president and foreign leaders.

In court documents filed Tuesday, attorneys for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked for a temporary restraining order preventing White House officials from claiming that records of President Trump’s calls and other conversations with foreign leaders fall under presidential privilege.

{mosads}Attorneys for the group added in the court filing that the request for an emergency motion came in response to claims from critics of the Trump administration who argue that the White House has kept insufficient records of Trump’s conversations with foreign heads of state.

“In the face of the palpable risk that presidential records will be irreparably lost to Plaintiffs and the American people, Defendants have refused to provide Plaintiffs with adequate assurances that pending the resolution of this lawsuit all relevant information will be preserved,” CREW wrote.

A new twist in impeachment-adjacent legal happenings: Groups that sued in May alleging Trump and the White House were failing to create/preserve records of comms with foreign leaders have asked the judge for an immediate order to preserve records at issue https://t.co/ElivKJqy0T pic.twitter.com/uxtyp9826X

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) October 1, 2019

The lawsuit, originally filed by CREW in May, argued that Trump had illegally “asserted or established a policy, practice, or guideline of treating records created by individuals providing translation or interpretation services to him and the contents of his and his staff’s meetings with foreign heads of state as exclusively presidential records.”

It went on to accuse Trump of deleting records of his calls with foreign leaders without first obtaining the opinion of the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, who would have issued a written opinion on whether the conversation should be made public.

“By and through his actions, President Trump has violated an obligation that the Constitution places solely on the President — to take care that the laws be faithfully executed — by directing or causing violations of the PRA and FRA [federal records law],” CREW wrote in May.

Trump faces an impeachment inquiry announced by House Democrats following news of conversations with Ukraine’s president during which Trump attempted to persuade Ukrainian officials to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a top 2020 contender in the Democratic Party primary.

The White House and the president’s Republican allies have argued that Trump did not improperly pressure Ukraine’s leader on the call, while Democrats have argued that the president is engaged in election interference involving a foreign country.