2026年4月2日 / 美国东部时间下午2:38 / 哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS News）
华盛顿讯 美国司法部表示，水门事件后出台的一项联邦法律——要求总统保存特定文件并在任期结束时将其移交给国家档案和记录管理局——违宪。
负责法律顾问办公室的助理司法部长T.埃利奥特·盖瑟出具的意见认定，《总统档案法》超出了国会的权力范围，“扩大了立法部门的权限”，损害了行政部门的独立性。
曾担任最高法院大法官塞缪尔·阿利托助理的盖瑟写道，鉴于他认定《总统档案法》违宪，特朗普总统无需遵守该法。
“《总统档案法》并非国会行使第一条宪法赋予权力的合法行为，它违宪地侵犯了第二条宪法保障的总统独立性和自主权，”他得出结论称。“该法案建立了一个永久性且繁重的国会监管总统的制度，与任何合法且明确的立法目的都毫无关联。”
司法部法律顾问办公室关于这项档案法律合宪性的决定于周四公开，该消息最先由Axios新闻网站报道。
《总统档案法》于1978年出台，距理查德·尼克松总统辞职四年后。该法律规定，总统档案属于美国政府，而非总统个人，必须予以保存。总统离任时，《总统档案法》要求将相关材料移交给负责保管这些文件的国家档案和记录管理局。
该法案适用于总统、副总统以及总统行政办公室的部分部门（如国家安全委员会）的档案，并规定了总统任期内及离任后信息的保存、查阅和归档要求。
根据该法律，白宫必须保存与特定政治活动以及总统职责相关的材料，包括电子邮件、短信和通话记录。但该法律不包括总统的个人记录，即“纯粹私人或非公开性质”的文件。
《总统档案法》没有强制执行机制，但特朗普在2023年因2021年1月第一任期结束后涉嫌不当处理敏感政府档案被起诉后，多次援引该法律。
在时任特别检察官杰克·史密斯主导的案件中，特朗普被指控在多次拒绝国家档案和记录管理局要求其移交文件的要求后，将机密文件存放在其位于南佛罗里达州的海湖庄园度假村。
特朗普否认存在任何不当行为，并声称根据档案法，他有权保留所有相关材料。该案最终在他去年11月赢得白宫第二任期后结案。
法律顾问办公室为总统和联邦机构提供法律问题咨询，其意见对行政部门具有约束力。但如果法院对法律问题作出不同解释，法院的裁定将优先适用。
Justice Department says law requiring president to turn over records at end of administration is unconstitutional
April 2, 2026 / 2:38 PM EDT / CBS News
Washington — The Justice Department said that a federal law enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandal that requires the president to preserve certain documents and turn them over to the National Archives at the end of his administration is unconstitutional.
The opinion from Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, who leads the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that the Presidential Records Act exceeds Congress’ power and “aggrandizes the legislative branch” at the expense of the independence of the executive branch.
Gaiser, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, wrote that as a result of his determination that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional, President Trump does not need to comply with it.
“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,” he found. “The Act establishes a permanent and burdensome regime of congressional regulation of the Presidency untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose.”
The Office of Legal Counsel decision on the constitutionality of the records law was made public Thursday and first reported by Axios.
The Presidential Records Act was enacted in 1978, four years after President Richard Nixon’s resignation. The law established that presidential records belong to the U.S. government, not the president personally, and must be preserved. When a president leaves office, the Presidential Records Act requires material to be turned over to the National Archives, which maintains the documents.
The measure governs the records of the president, vice president and certain parts of the Executive Office of the President, like the National Security Council, and sets out requirements for the maintenance, access and preservation of information during and after a presidency.
Under the law, the White House must preserve material relating to certain political activities and information regarding the president’s duties, including emails, text messages and phone records. But it excludes the president’s personal records, which are documents of a “purely private or nonpublic character.”
The Presidential Records Act has no enforcement mechanism, but Mr. Trump repeatedly invoked the law after he was indicted in 2023 on charges stemming from his alleged mishandling of sensitive government records after the end of his first term in January 2021.
In a case pursued by then-special counsel Jack Smith, Mr. Trump was accused of keeping classified documents at his South Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, after repeatedly rebuffing demands from the National Archives that he turn them over.
Mr. Trump denied any wrongdoing and claimed that he was allowed to keep all of the material under the records law. The case eventually ended after he won a second term in the White House last November.
The Office of Legal Counsel provides the president and federal agencies with advice on legal questions, and its opinions bind the executive branch. But if a court reaches a different interpretation of a legal question, that determination prevails.
发表回复