That is true of "sitting presidents"
Ex-presidents have ZERO presidential authority over their records. The only authority they have is that granted by the Presidential Records act.
Wrong.
When president, the point is they get to give copies of classified docs to whomever they want, like ambassadors, general, labs, allies, etc.
None of those docs need to be returned when the president's term is over.
So then when president, they can give copies of all classified docs to themselves.
And they do NOT ever have to return them.
And in fact ALL presidents have always kept their personal copies of classified docs, for their memoirs, etc.
Any claim that ex-president "have zero authority over their records" clearly is lying.
Who else could possibly have authority over them?
Clearly not NARA, which is the joke at the end of the "Indiana Jones" movie, where the Ark of the Covenant become lost in a huge NARA warehouse.
And you totally have the Presidential Records Act backwards.
The point of the PRA is to ensure the FOIA gets future access for archival purposes.
The right of ex-presidents over their records came first and is inherent.
The slow progress towards Freedom of Information transparency is only a very recent attempt to allow us access to COPIES, NOT ORIGINALS. The ex-presidents have their own copies separate of NARA and PRA.
