continues. host:

>> a timely discussion our guest executive director of the national coalition for history. get to the presidential records act of 1978, explain about the coalition and your group's mission. guest: the coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consortium of about 42 different organizations. we represent not just historians but political scientists, k-12 history and social studies teachers, a range of different groups. we advocate on the hill for funding for history related agencies or programs like the national archives, park services, history programs, things like that. we are also heavily involved in records access issues since we represent historians who need access to primary sources to do their work. host: it is history

coalition.org if you want to check them out on the web. the presidential records act, likely hearing more about that as this document's case against the former president moves forward. where did it come from, what was happening in 1978 that we need a present to records act? guest: it was directly the result of the abuses we saw during the nixon administration. when president nixon left, he made a deal with the then -- national archives was unr e general services administration. he made a deal with them to take his peand everything with them and congress put a stop to it. congress realized there was a need to make sure something like this did not happen again, so they passed this law all the president records act. until that time, the records of a president were considered his personal property. he could take them with him, do

whatever he wanted. in the 1930's, to give you more background, president roosevelt came up with the idea of creating a presidential library where he could leave his records and his mementos and all of the things from his administration during his second administration, he started the idea. so that future historians and people could learn about the work he had done. that precedent was set and each, subsequent president decided i would like to do that to. congress passed the libraries act in 1955, setting parameters for subsequent presidents to do that. every president since then has created a presidential library except for president obama has decided not to, he was going to create presidential centers so the records will revert back to

--normally the records go to a repository at the presidents library. i am sorry, acronyms. the national archives and records administration. host: that is the independent agency. when we talk about a presidential record under the presidential records act, what qualifies as a presidential record? guest: anything created related to the business of the presidency. it covers the white house, the president, the white house staff, all of the sub agencies that are within the immediate purview of the white house. any business or transactions or documents related to the actual business of the government are presidential records, it is all encompassing. host: how big of a change was this in 1978 that the records a president makes that he jots down are no longer his, that

they are the property of the united states? guest: while the president is in office, the president has the authority to do somewhat what they would like to do with records. they can -- former president trump has said rightly you can declassify documents while you are president. you can destroy records if you want to, but you have to get to the vice of the archivist, you have to notify congress. that is not done that often. they can destroy bulk male and things like that. but, the moment the new president is inaugurated at 12:01 across the street here, the custody reverts to the federal government and the government owns those records, as well as the american people. host: because it is playing such a role in this debate over the former president records, does

the president shall records act lay out a process for declassification? guest: that is covered by an executive order. executive order 15326, if anyone wants to look it up. declassification is regulated by an exec of order, not a presidential records act. host: does the president shall records act make a distinction between classified records and not classified records? guest: no. host: who decides that the president shall records act has been violated? if there is some question over whether something has not been kept, who gets to make that decision? guest: i think in the case with the national archives, when, after president biden was inaugurated, the national archives new there were certain things that were missing like the kim jong-un letter. there were things missing. it is my understanding that when

classified materials are sent to the president or the office of the president that they are tracked, they know they exist. the national archives was going through, they are unpacking and are like, wait, there are things that are supposed to be here that are not here. they noticed. they sent letters to, the president's office the former president's office and said, we've got concerns there are records we think we should have that we do not have. do you have them? if you do, could you please send them back? they are very differential. if you see the timeline throughout the process, the archives was trying gently to prod them and they were sending emails to the white house counsel, the former white house counsel saying, could you help us out? there was not a big, in your face, we need this stuff tomorrow. they were giving them plenty of time to comply and get the records back to the archives. host: before the donald trump

case, what were the previous, most high-profile cases involving the president to records at? -- act? guest: i do not think this was -- number one, there is no enforcement mechanism in the president shall records act. president trump is being prosecuted under the espionage act for having possession of records that he is not entitled to have. there is no code section in the presidential records act that says a violation of this results in five years in jail or $20,000 fine or whatever. the only option the national archives have once they had played out the, we are not getting what we are supposed to be getting, was to report it to the department of justice and say have these records, we believe they are classified records, you need to get involved. host: had the national archives and records administration

involve the justice department in any previous cases? guest: there had been a case where former clinton national security advisor sandy berger had -- i believe he was to testify before the 9/11 commission, a little hazy on my memory on it. he asked the national archives if he could go in and look at his notes and records from that time period. while he was there, he stuffed them in his coat pocket and walked out. host: former president trump referenced saying the clinton case, while denouncing the indictment charged against him in recent days, this was an event in columbus, georgia this past weekend. i want to play this clip since we are talking past cases. [video clip] >> they do not mention the defining lawsuit that was brought against bill clinton. it was lost by the government, the famous socks case that says

you can keep you -- keep these documents. they do not mention that. these are the minor details. when i left office and was moving to florida, boxes were openly sitting on the white house sidewalk. everybody was taking pictures of them. this is not somebody smuggling boxes out, pictures of them sitting with people from gsa and other people waiting to put them on a truck. they were literally sitting outside of the white house, waiting for a truck to come. the truck come, it was there for a long time. they brought it down to florida and make it sound like it is a big event by operation, we did a poor job i will tell you. first thing you learn is, do not put them on the sidewalk in front of the white house. [laughter] >> as a former president, we

were negotiating with the national archives and records administration just as every other president has done. the next thing i knew, mar-a-lago was rated by gun toting fbi agents. we were negotiating. host: that was former president trump on saturday. lee white, some of the issues he brings up including the socks case. guest: the socks case is utterly, totally irrelevant to what we have at hand. in that case, president clinton was being interviewed by historian pulitzer prize winning tyler branch about his time in the white house. one of the exceptions in the presidential records act is that diaries, personal journals are exempt from the presidential records act. so, we are not talking -- in this case,