Lawmakers seek preservation of all Trump AI prompts under records law
Raskin and Garcia request a briefing by November 11 following reports that the president consulted Grok on military strategy.
By Anthony Lawson ·
Representatives Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Robert Garcia of California formally requested on October 30 that President Donald Trump preserve every prompt and response generated by artificial intelligence chatbots during official duties. The letter targets specific commercial systems, including xAI's Grok, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Anthropic's Claude. The lawmakers, who currently lead the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees respectively, set a deadline for an executive briefing on the matter for 5 p.m. on November 11.
The demand follows a report published in October 2026 that detailed a private meeting between Trump and Elon Musk in the Oval Office in December 2025. An official present at that meeting stated that Trump spent hours querying Grok about his presidency and legacy. At that time, the president was directing missile strikes against Venezuelan vessels accused of drug smuggling. He asked the chatbot how the Venezuelan public would react if the United States captured President Nicolás Maduro. Grok described Maduro as a repressive and unpopular dictator whose removal many citizens would celebrate. Trump reportedly viewed the chatbot as a useful tool for decision-making after that exchange.
One month after that meeting, Trump ordered a military operation to seize Maduro. The capture led to celebrations in Venezuelan streets. The lawmakers argued that the president sought advice from an AI system rather than from Congress regarding the deployment of U.S. forces. They noted that the military action proceeded without congressional authorization. Raskin and Garcia described this practice as deeply troubling. They warned that relying on commercial chatbots introduces a technology that is easily manipulated and prone to error into foreign policy decisions.
The request relies on the Presidential Records Act, which was enacted after the Watergate scandal. The law requires that presidential records be filed separately from personal materials and belong to the public. Amendments passed in 2014 extended these requirements to electronic records. The statute focuses on the content of information rather than the medium used to store it. However, the law does not explicitly mention artificial intelligence. Federal guidance from the National Archives generally treats prompts and outputs as records only if they are saved within an agency system. This distinction creates uncertainty for interactions with commercial platforms.
The White House stated that it preserves all required records in accordance with the law. A Trump administration official declined to answer specific questions about the letter. A spokesperson for Musk did not respond to requests for comment. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel declared the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional in April. Nevertheless, a federal judge ordered the administration in May to preserve presidential records in the interim. The White House has told a court that its staff continue to preserve work-related materials.
This dispute occurs as Democrats prepare to potentially reclaim control of the House in the midterm elections scheduled for next week. If they win, Raskin and Garcia would retain their committee chairs. A Democratic-controlled chamber would have the authority to use committee hearings, document requests, and subpoenas to investigate how the administration uses emerging technology. The response to this specific preservation demand will serve as an early indicator of the procedural conflicts likely to arise in the final years of the current term.
