President Donald Trump has fired the head of the National Archives, after complaining for nearly two years about the agency’s role in the Justice Department’s investigation and eventual prosecution of him over a slew of classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago home following his first term.
The director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, Sergio Gor, announced in a social media post Friday that Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan had been removed from her position.
Controversy Surrounding the Dismissal
Shogan, 49, was not the archivist at the time the agency was attempting to retrieve boxes of presidential records from Trump’s estate in 2021 and 2022. But Trump has viewed NARA with suspicion since the investigation and has openly described its top staff as complicit in efforts to damage him politically.
The White House announcement followed two days of uncertainty at the Archives, following an ABC News report Wednesday that Trump had fired Shogan and replaced her on an acting basis with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Legal Ramifications and Public Response
Gor did not announce a replacement for Shogan. It wasn’t immediately clear who will run the agency in her absence. Without further action by Trump, Deputy Archivist Jay Bosanko — a career employee — would automatically step in as the acting head of the Archives.
Trump at times claimed he had declassified all the sensitive records he kept at his home, declared that he had designated them as his personal property — an option given to him under federal recordkeeping laws — and suggested they may have been planted at his estate. But Trump presented no evidence that he had taken any steps, prior to leaving office, to designate the records declassified or personal, a fact prosecutors repeatedly emphasized to suggest he knew he wasn’t permitted to have them.
Expert Opinion and Historical Context
A former director of litigation at the Archives, Jason R. Baron, said he was troubled by Shogan’s ouster. He noted that federal law says the Archivist must be appointed “without regard to political affiliations and solely on the basis of … professional qualifications.” The statute also says the president must notify Congress about why the archivist was dismissed.
“No good reason exists for firing Dr. Shogan, as she has faithfully carried out her duties in a nonpartisan fashion in the short time since being appointed U.S. Archivist by President Biden,” said Baron, now a professor at the University of Maryland. “Dr. Shogan had nothing to do with the prior actions NARA staff took in connection with the successful return of boxes of presidential records that had been improperly transferred to Mar-a-Lago at the end of President Trump’s first term.”
Potential Impact on Record-Keeping and Preservation
As part of its role overseeing the preservation of federal records, the Archives also sets schedules dictating when various types of records can be destroyed and investigates claims that records have been lost, stolen or disposed of in violation of those requirements. The agency also preserves presidential records and handles requests for them from Congress and the public after a president’s term in office concludes.
President Joe Biden nominated Shogan for the archivist job in August 2022 after the retirement of David Ferriero, who’d served in the post since 2009 and was in the position when NARA first contacted the Justice Department about missing presidential records – a process Trump has referred to as a “sham referral.” Shogan was confirmed by the Senate in May 2023.
Public Reaction and Future Implications
Late last year, Shogan visited the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., to advocate for a lengthy sentence for a man who threw powdered paint at the case housing the original U.S. Constitution, displayed at the National Archives.
Shogan said the man “intentionally and willfully assaulted our shared past,” describing the attack as “an emotional buzzsaw” for NARA staffers, who she said view their job as to “preserve, protect and share the cultural record of the United States.”
Trump said in a radio interview prior to his inauguration last month that he planned to dismiss Shogan.
