The Justice Department contends that a federal law requiring the preservation of presidential records is unconstitutional, which could effectively permit White House lawyers to try to set their own voluntary presidential recordkeeping policy and, potentially, upend decades-old legal precedent established in response to Richard M. Nixon’s effort to keep control of records after his resignation.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — which is tasked with serving as a legal adviser to the U.S. attorney general and the executive branch — issued an opinion this week finding that the law, known as the Presidential Records Act of 1978, exceeds “Congress’s enumerated and implied powers, and it aggrandizes the Legislative Branch at the Expense of the constitutional independence and autonomy of the Executive.”

“The PRA is not a valid exercise of Congress’s Article I authority and unconstitutionally intrudes on the independence and autonomy of the President guaranteed by Article II,” states the memorandum opinion, which was signed by T. Elliot Gaiser, a Trump appointee.

Gaiser, who has all the usual wingnut credentials, wanted the 2020 election to be overturned. Just so you know his deep level of legal expertise!

“The Act establishes a permanent and burdensome regime of congressional regulation of the Presidency untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose,” the opinion continues. “For these reasons, the PRA is unconstitutional, and the President need not further comply with its dictates.”

Now let's look at the real reason! Did you know that under the Presidential Records Act, Trump’s first-term presidential records become subject to FOIA this year? You may not have known, but you can be damned sure the Administration does, and in addition to other forms of bureaucratic obstruction, is now throwing this legal memo on the tracks in an attempt to stop the transparency train.