Right and Left Split on Trump's Level of Transparency

A widely syndicated Associated Press (Left bias) article argued that President Donald Trump could leave behind less documentation than past presidents. 

From Associated Press: The piece noted that “the Trump administration is scrubbing thousands of government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable” and has used apps, including Signal, that can auto-delete messages. Trump has also reportedly discouraged note-taking in meetings. It quoted Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian who served as founding director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, who said, “He thinks he controls history. He wants to control what Americans ultimately find out about the truth of his administration, and that’s dangerous.” A HuffPost (Left) piece noted that most of the White House transcripts haven't been made public either.

For Context: The administration is also currently fighting a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request directed at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The administration has asked the Supreme Court to block it, arguing that the request is “intrusive” and “will hamstring [DOGE] in carrying out its mission” and that DOGE should not be subject to such requests as a presidential advisory board under executive privilege. In March, a federal judge ruled that DOGE should be subject to FOIA, citing its “substantial authority over vast swathes of the federal government.”

From the Right: Few outlets on the right ran the Associated Press article compared to outlets on the left and center. Instead, outlets on the right focused on Trump's acts of transparency. For example, FBI Director Kash Patel outlined a plan for a “wave of transparency” from the agency to increase public trust. The Trump administration has billed itself the “most transparent in history.”

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