1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

We, the undersigned citizens of the United States, hereby formally petition the United States Congress to take immediate and decisive action to defend the Presidential Records Act, restore government transparency, and hold the †rump regime accountable for a systematic pattern of illegal and unconstitutional conduct carried out in our name, with our money, without our consent. I. The Attack on the Presidential Records Act On April 1, 2026, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel issued a 52-page opinion declaring the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional and stating that the President "need not further comply with its dictates." This is the first time in the nearly half century since the law was enacted that any presidential administration has challenged its constitutionality. The Presidential Records Act was passed by Congress in 1978 in response to the Watergate scandal. It establishes that official presidential records are the property of the American people, not the president. It requires that those records be preserved and turned over to the National Archives when a president leaves office, where they become available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. This opinion defies binding Supreme Court precedent established in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services. It endangers hundreds of millions of records from the current and prior administrations. It would allow official government records, created with taxpayer funds, documenting decisions made in the name of the American people, to be concealed, controlled, or destroyed by the very officials whose conduct those records document. If this opinion stands, it will apply to every future administration regardless of party. A president who can destroy the record of their own conduct answers to no one. That is not democracy. That is the architecture of tyranny. II. The Pattern of Transparency Failures This Petition Would Illuminate The attack on the Presidential Records Act is not an isolated incident. It is the legal framework being constructed around a cover-up already underway. The following actions by the †rump regime represent a documented, consistent, and deliberate pattern of operating without accountability or transparency: Inspectors general fired illegally. More than 350 federal inspectors general were fired without the 30-day congressional notice required by law. These are the independent watchdogs whose job it is to catch government corruption and waste. DOGE given access without authorization. An unelected private citizen was given access to Treasury payment systems, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security databases. Over 260,000 federal workers were purged. Entire agencies were dismantled without congressional authorization. Federal court orders openly defied. 137 Venezuelan men were deported to a brutal El Salvador mega-prison in direct defiance of a federal court order. A federal judge found the deportations were carried out in willful contempt of his ruling. A Maryland man was wrongfully deported despite a court order protecting him. The Supreme Court ordered his return. The regime refused. Classified war plans leaked on a commercial app. Senior regime officials shared classified military strike plans, including targets, weapons systems, and attack sequencing, in a Signal group chat that accidentally included a journalist. A war started without congressional authorization. Strikes on Iran were launched on February 28, 2026 without a declaration of war from Congress, in violation of the War Powers Resolution and the Constitution. Military legal experts called it illegal. Threats to destroy civilian infrastructure prompted United Nations warnings about potential war crimes. The press systematically targeted. The Associated Press was banned from the Oval Office. NPR and PBS face existential legal pressure. Universities were threatened with funding cuts over protected speech. The law enforcement accountability database deleted. The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, which tracked federal officer misconduct to prevent rehiring, was quietly deleted. The ICE death log allowed to go dark. Thirteen people died in ICE detention in the first three months of 2026. The legally required public death log has not been updated since February 27, 2026. Official press releases are inaccessible. Health investigations have been obstructed. Witnesses who spoke to reporters were deported. Nearly 2,000 people at one Florida facility cannot be located in the government's own tracking system. All of this has happened. All of it is documented. All of it is already difficult to access. Now the regime is arguing it does not have to preserve any record of what it has done. III. What We Demand We, the undersigned, demand that Congress take the following actions immediately: 1. Pass legislation formally reaffirming the constitutionality and enforceability of the Presidential Records Act, with strengthened penalties for non-compliance. 2. Pass legislation requiring the National Archives to independently verify compliance with the Presidential Records Act throughout a presidency, not only at its conclusion. 3. Launch a formal congressional investigation into the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion of April 1, 2026, including who authorized it, when it was commissioned, and what steps the administration has taken to circumvent the Presidential Records Act. 4. Restore and strengthen the independence of federal inspectors general and pass legislation making their illegal removal a criminal offense. 5. Pass the DHS Use of Force Transparency Act of 2026, requiring full disclosure of all in-custody deaths and use of force incidents by federal immigration enforcement. 6. Conduct full congressional oversight hearings into conditions at ICE detention facilities, the obstruction of public health investigations, and the silencing of witnesses. 7. Formally censure any executive branch official who has defied a lawful federal court order. 8. Restore the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database and pass legislation preventing its deletion or alteration by any future executive order. The American people are watching. We are counting the votes. We are remembering the silences. We will hold accountable every representative who fails to act at this moment, and we will remember every representative who had the courage to stand. Presidential records belong to the people. American history belongs to the people. This government belongs to the people. Act accordingly.