Trump says he'll replace National Archives leader

President-elect Trump said on Monday that he’ll replace the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) leader.

“We will [have a] new archivist,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on his show.

According to federal law on the NARA website, Trump has the power to fire the archivist but must "communicate the reasons for any such removal to each House of the Congress."

One of the prominent legal cases the president-elect has had to deal with in the past two years, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, centered around his retention of sensitive documents from his first presidency, in the face of work by NARA and the FBI to get them back.

Special counsel Jack Smith formally withdrew from the documents case last week, referring the continuing prosecution of the president-elect’s two co-defendants to Southern District of Florida federal prosecutors. Smith also formally dropped charges against Trump in both of his federal cases two months ago, dismissing them without prejudice and citing Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.

“We also had a very brilliant and very fair judge on the case,” Trump told Hewitt on Monday, referring to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled to toss the documents case in July. 

“And as you know, we won that case … we won it convincingly,” the president-elect added.

The current Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan has been in the role since May 2023.  While still a nominee, she faced confrontation from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) about past posts on the social platform X, including those in which she went after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and backed mask mandates for young children.

“Dr. Shogan has had a strong working relationship with President Trump and his team. We look forward to continuing that relationship with the new administration," National Archives Public and Media Communications said in an emailed statement to The Hill Sunday.