The Constitution trumps the law. I’m not arguing that the PRA is unconstitutional or is going to be challenged or declared unconstitutional. I’m just pointing out that the way in which you and others claim it can or would be enforced is impractical due to the president’s inherent Constitutional power.

Yes, the PRA lays out a guideline for what SHOULD be done, but it has no way to enforce that guideline because, at the end of the day, only the president can make the decision as to how to categorize his papers.

Feel free to dispute this by laying out a case for how a subordinate executive branch official — which is all of them — can override their superior’s decision and also let me know in which other matters a subordinate executive branch official can override the president’s authority, as you can’t possibly argue there is only one such instance.

Likewise, explain how a court would implement the PRA against a recalcitrant president. What provision of the PRA would empower a court to do so? There is no enforcement mechanism, and that’s because any enforcement mechanism would violate the Constitution.

Had the authors of the PRA wanted an enforcement mechanism, then they would have created one. They would have said something like ALL documents ever handled by a president must go through an independent review board to separate them into personal and presidential pikes, with the latter going with the president and the former going to NARA. But the drafters didn’t do that because they had no authority to do that.