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Speaker 1: President Donald Trump tweets at all hours of the day

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Speaker 1: and night about every subject, from the very silly blaming

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Speaker 1: the celebrity apprentices low ratings on Arnold Schwarzenegger to the

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Speaker 1: very serious accusing President Barack Obama of wire tapping his

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Speaker 1: phones during the election. That allegation, which was flatly denied

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Speaker 1: by an Obama spokesman and former National Intelligence Director James Clapper,

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Speaker 1: has caused a furore. President Trump has provided no evidence

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Speaker 1: to back up his accusations of a felony, and neither

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Speaker 1: has White House spokesman Shawn Spicer. I'm just gonna let

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Speaker 1: the tweet speak for itself. Trump's tweets are presidential records,

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Speaker 1: and he's deleted tweets since he was president. So on

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Speaker 1: March eight, the leaders of the House Oversight Committee wrote

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Speaker 1: a letter to the White House Council warning that if

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Speaker 1: those tweets were not archived, it could be a violation

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Speaker 1: of the Presidential Records Act. Here to discuss this latest

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Speaker 1: twist on the tweets are Richard Painter, professor at the

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Speaker 1: University of Minnesota, a law school and a former White

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Speaker 1: House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, and John

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Speaker 1: Michael's professor at u c l A Law School, Richard,

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Speaker 1: is there any doubt that the president's tweets our official

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Speaker 1: president records and should be preserved under the pr A? Well,

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Speaker 1: the president's tweets on the potus Twitter account our official

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Speaker 1: records his personal account. I don't think he is, But

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Speaker 1: a lot of these tweets are going to be preserved

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Speaker 1: anyway because they're reproduced so quickly on the Internet. Well, John,

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Speaker 1: that seems like an interesting dichotomy right there. There was

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Speaker 1: a lot of talk during the election campaign about Hillary

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Speaker 1: Clinton when she was Secretary of State using a private

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Speaker 1: email server for official business. Here the president seems to

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Speaker 1: be using his personal Twitter account, which is private on

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Speaker 1: a private company's uh Internet service, to do what looks

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Speaker 1: like official president ng. Why wouldn't that be covered by

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Speaker 1: the Records Act? So it's um but part of the

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Speaker 1: Records Act, though it does require that government officials using

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Speaker 1: private media platforms for um professional business reasons have to

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Speaker 1: preserve them. They have to copy them over to a

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Speaker 1: government server or send them to the government office. So

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Speaker 1: um as, as Richards said, not only would it be

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Speaker 1: preserved by third parties who are kind of snapshotting. Uh,

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Speaker 1: these records, but they're they're supposed to be cataloged for

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Speaker 1: the government as well. So since the election, Trump has

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Speaker 1: deleted tweets for what seems like substantive reasons. For example,

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Speaker 1: a tweet that China had stolen a U. S. Navy

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Speaker 1: research drome was deleted after an hour, and some for

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Speaker 1: reasons of misspellings. So past presidents have set up auto archiving.

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Speaker 1: Is he in violation of the p r A And

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Speaker 1: if so, Richard, can anyone stop him? Well, Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: his personal tweets, uh really express his personal views. I'm

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Speaker 1: not so sure those are all official records. That offends

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Speaker 1: on what they pertain to. Uh. My concern goes well

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Speaker 1: beyond the preservation of the records. Uh, it is that

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Speaker 1: that tweet contained clear misrepresentation. And it's fine. You can

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Speaker 1: legally lie on Twitter all you want. Uh, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I guess short of committics lander can sue for it.

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Speaker 1: But the problem is when White House officials start to

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Speaker 1: defend his position with respect to wire tapping and representations

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Speaker 1: are made to Congress into Executive Branch agencies about alleged

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Speaker 1: Obama wire tapping, that's just false. We're getting into false

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Speaker 1: statements and some very serious issues, and all of that

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Speaker 1: is official government business, and of course has to be

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Speaker 1: done on a social government email and so forth. But

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Speaker 1: there may be some false statements floating around here, and

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Speaker 1: that's effect the criminal effects if it's done in an

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Speaker 1: official capacity. And John, besides that, if he's using and

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Speaker 1: he is using his former account the at real Donald Trump,

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Speaker 1: if he's using that as part of his presidential duties

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Speaker 1: and the way he conducts himself, isn't that the electronic

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Speaker 1: messaging account for presidential records that is under the President

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Speaker 1: and Federal Records Act amendments of fourteen, that still has

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Speaker 1: to be forwarded to an official account. That is my understanding.

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Speaker 1: And and to go to the broader point that I

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Speaker 1: think has been kind of nicely segued that Um, in

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Speaker 1: some ways we have to be a little bit skeptical

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Speaker 1: of this type of form of engagement by the House

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Speaker 1: Oversight Committee when we're looking at kind of my my

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Speaker 1: minor almost ministerial offenses, UM, when there are greater improprieties

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Speaker 1: that seem to be lurking under the s of fish. UM.

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Speaker 1: So as much as I applaud diligence in terms of

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Speaker 1: complying with the letter of the law, one does want

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Speaker 1: to put one might want to invite further further probing

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Speaker 1: along these lines. Yes, Richard, you know, one can imagine

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Speaker 1: a different you know, the House Oversight Committee writing a

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Speaker 1: different letter about these tweets, can't one. Well, yes, I'm

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Speaker 1: very concerned about whether people have been lyned to Congress

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Speaker 1: or lined to the Department Justice of the FBI. If

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Speaker 1: someone is saying there was a an Obama authorized wire tap,

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Speaker 1: where's the evidence for that? Is this all just being

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Speaker 1: made up? And you don't have the rights to just

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Speaker 1: make up information and communicate that to the FBI or

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Speaker 1: the Congress. It seems as if John that FBI Director

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Speaker 1: James Comey, has been questioned about this by people in

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Speaker 1: the congressional committees, but he's not come out, unlike teachd

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Speaker 1: with Hillary Clinton, he's not come out and stated whether

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Speaker 1: or not this was happening, which which has been denied flatly,

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Speaker 1: and there's no proof for it at all. Should he

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Speaker 1: be subpoena to testify in open um, I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: we're there yet. Again on this particular inquiry um. If

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Speaker 1: one were to try to draw distinctions and I'm not

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Speaker 1: trying to excuse one one behavior or another. UM. The

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Speaker 1: private tweets feel and look very different from the kind

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Speaker 1: of classified correspondence that were at least alleged to be

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Speaker 1: UM trafficking along private servers UM. So so, I as

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Speaker 1: much as I agree that there's a clear kind of

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Speaker 1: sense of hypocrisy for a president to or a candidate

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Speaker 1: to be battering another candidate over and over again last summer,

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Speaker 1: over the the the the communication and through private servers,

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Speaker 1: I do think there's still a substant difference between what

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Speaker 1: the president may be tweeting and erasing UM and what

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Speaker 1: might be have been UM sent through the new classified

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Speaker 1: documentation that sent from from within groups of individuals on

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Speaker 1: private servers. Well, I'm certain that we are going to

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Speaker 1: be hearing a lot about this in the days and

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Speaker 1: perhaps weeks to come, until there is some resolution of this.

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Speaker 1: I want to thank you both for being on Bloomberg Law.

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Speaker 1: That's Richard Painter. He's a professor at the University of

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Speaker 1: Minnesota Law School in a former White House ethics lawyer

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Speaker 1: under President George W. Bush and John Michaels. He's a

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Speaker 1: professor at u c l A Law school that's it

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Speaker 1: for this edition of Bloomberg Law. We'll be back on

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Speaker 1: Monday at one pm Wall Street Time, thanks to our

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Speaker 1: technical director Chris try Comy and our producer David Suckerman.

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Speaker 1: Coming up Bloomberg Markets with Carol Master and Corey Johnson.

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Speaker 1: Starts right now. Carol, what's up, hi, June. I'm in

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Speaker 1: our l A bureau here at Bloomberg News, and we're

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Speaker 1: gonna be talking about big tobacco catching startup fever, and

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Speaker 1: of course we've got to talk about that monthly jobs report.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna talk with former Deputy Secretary of Labor Chris Loose.

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Speaker 1: So a lot going on on this Friday. T G

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Speaker 1: I f By the way, June, yes, and I would

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Speaker 1: be must much better to be t G I f

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Speaker 1: Ing in l A than in New York where it's snowing.

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Speaker 1: So we'll be looking forward to that. Bloomberg Markets with

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Speaker 1: Carol Masser and Corey Johnson coming up. That's it for

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Speaker 1: this Bloomberg Law addition. We will see you again on Monday.

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Speaker 1: Have a great weekend. This is Bloomberg