1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

I am one of your constituents, and I am writing to tell you that federal law is being violated in the White House right now — and I expect you to do something about it. The Presidential Records Act is not a suggestion. It is the law. It requires the President, the Vice President, and their staff to preserve records related to government activity and turn them over to the National Archives at the end of each administration. This week, the Trump administration issued internal guidance that a leading national expert says effectively guts that requirement — quietly, deliberately, and in the middle of active court battles over records preservation. White House Counsel David Alan Warrington issued a memo to Executive Office of the President staff that rewrites the rules around which communications must be saved and how. University of Maryland Professor Jason R. Baron — a nationally recognized expert in archives and the law — read that memo and immediately told the Washington Post that it gives White House staff permission to direct the deletion or destruction of White House records, including tens of millions of emails, either before or after the end of this administration. The language is deliberately engineered to create maximum flexibility for destruction. Staff are told they are "free to retain" previous record preservation policies — which means they are equally free not to. Text messages now only need to be preserved when staff themselves decide they are the sole record of official decision-making. Staff are merely encouraged to save those exchanges in another format rather than being required to preserve the originals. There is no enforcement mechanism. There is no accountability. There is just a quiet green light to delete, dressed up in bureaucratic language. I need you to understand what this looks like in context. This is not an isolated policy decision. This is a pattern. This is the same administration that used Signal to discuss active military strikes in a chat that accidentally included a journalist. The same administration that fired multiple inspectors general whose sole job was independent oversight. The same administration that is actively fighting records preservation requests in court — while simultaneously issuing internal guidance that makes destroying those same records discretionary. Taken together, this is not carelessness. This is a deliberate strategy to ensure that what this administration has done cannot be fully investigated, prosecuted, or held up to public scrutiny after they leave office. Nixon erased 18 minutes of tape. The country spent years grappling with that. What this administration is preparing to do is not comparable in degree — it is a different category of destruction entirely. Tens of millions of emails. Gone. Legally defensible under guidance they wrote themselves. Professor Baron said it plainly — while the memo pays lip service to preservation, it gives staff license to do the exact opposite. The American people have a right to know what their government did. That right means nothing if the records no longer exist when someone finally asks. As my elected representative, I am holding you to the following: First, I expect you to take immediate steps to prevent the destruction of White House records before it happens — not after the fact, not once the damage is done. Second, I expect you to support emergency legislation to strengthen the Presidential Records Act and close every loophole this memo was written to exploit. Third, I expect you to call for an immediate congressional investigation into this guidance and the administration's broader and documented pattern of records destruction and obstruction. Fourth, I expect you to issue a public statement to your constituents telling them where you stand and what you are prepared to do about it. You were elected to provide oversight. You were elected to protect the integrity of this government and the rights of the people in this district. This is precisely the moment that responsibility exists for. Inaction here is not neutrality — it is a choice to let it happen on your watch. I expect a substantive response within 14 days. I will be sharing your answer — or your silence — publicly with my community.