WASHINGTON — The Justice Department ruled Thursday that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional, a determination that frees President Donald Trump from the law's requirements to preserve certain documents and turn them over to the National Archives at the end of his administration. The decision was issued by the department's Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice to the president and federal agencies.

"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," said Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, who leads the Office of Legal Counsel. "The Act establishes a permanent and burdensome regime of congressional regulation of the Presidency untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose," Gaiser said.

Opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel bind the executive branch, though if a court reaches a different interpretation of a legal question, the court's determination prevails. As a result of the ruling, Trump does not need to comply with the records law.

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. It governs the records of the president, the vice president and certain parts of the Executive Office of the President, such as the National Security Council. The law sets requirements for the maintenance, access and preservation of information during and after a presidency.

Under the act, 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. When a president leaves office, the law requires that material be turned over to the National Archives, which maintains the documents. The act excludes the president's personal records, which are documents of a "purely private or nonpublic character." The law has no enforcement mechanism.

The ruling arrives against the backdrop of Trump's own legal history involving the records law. In 2023, Trump was indicted on charges stemming from his alleged mishandling of sensitive government records after his first term ended in January 2021. Then-special counsel Jack Smith pursued a case accusing Trump of keeping classified documents at his South Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, after rebuffing repeated demands from the National Archives to turn them over.

Trump denied any wrongdoing and claimed that he was allowed to keep all of the material under the Presidential Records Act. He repeatedly invoked the law after his indictment. The case ended after Trump won a second term in the White House last November.

Gaiser previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. He now serves as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, which issued Thursday's determination.