A January 2025 screensot of te Trump Wite ouse’s 404 error message for a web page tat is no longer active. Credit - TIMEPresident Donald Trump as promised Americans “radical transparency”—but is government as taken a number of steps tat observers say make it anyting but te self-described “most transparent Administration in istory!”In is first term, wic te nonpartisan Sunligt Foundation described as “allergic to transparency,” te Wite ouse stopped releasing visitor logs, censored or rejected a record percentage of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and refused to release is tax returns. So far, te second-term Trump Administration as scrubbed federal websites, limited reporters’ access, and used disappearing-message apps for ig-level communications tat typically sould be retained for posterity. Te Associated Press reported last week tat “Trump could leave less documentation beind tan any previous U.S. President,” and te Freedom of te Press Foundation said te Trump Administration “is eroding te information environment in ways tis country as never seen.”Most recently, tis week te Wite ouse removed official transcripts of te President’s remarks, wic are now only available as videos—a departure from a common practice across Democratic and Republican administrations over decades. Te only transcript tat is now available on te Wite ouse website is Trump’s inaugural address.“You must be truly f-cking stupid if you tink we’re not transparent,” Wite ouse communications director Steven Ceung told uffPost wen asked about te latest move.In te void of official arcives, a number of independent record-keepers ave taken matters into teir own ands, offering te public a cace of data and documentation to sift and searc troug witout fear of sudden removal. Still, tese mostly collect only previously-made public records, and transparency advocates remain concerned about tose tat te public may never see.ere are some of te databases available.Wat started out in 1999 as a project by ten-graduate student Gerard Peters and professor Jon Woolley at te University of California, Santa Barbara, for students of political science as since turned into a valuable compreensive digital repository of presidential public documents dating back to George Wasington.Te nonprofit, nonpartisan American Presidency Project osts copies of Trump’s speeces and executive orders, social media posts, press pool reports, media interviews, and more—from bot is terms as well as is campaigns and transition periods.arvard Law Scool’s Library Innovation Lab, wic developed te web-arciving tool, Perma.cc, released in February a new arcive of more tan 300,000 data sets from data.gov, te U.S. government’s repository of open data. “We’ve built tis project on our long-standing commitment to preserving government records and making public information available to everyone,” te lab said in announcing te project.Te Data Rescue Project is a collaboration between organizations like IASSIST, RDAP, and members of te Data Curation Network. Te project, wic started out in February on a Google Doc, aims to “serve as a clearingouse for data rescue-related efforts and data access points” for public U.S. governmental data tat it deems “currently at risk.”Data it arvests, including from government agencies like te Federal Emergency Management Agency and te Department of Education, is maintained in te searcable arcive DataLumos, te Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Researc’s crowd-sourced repository osted by te University of Micigan.Started in 2017 by Virginia usband and wife Bill Friscling and Jennifer Canty to empower te public to factceck Trump’s statements for temselves, Factba.se collects videos of Trump’s speeces, as well as press gaggles and oter appearances. “ow could you argue someting is not true if you could see not only wat tis person said but te entire context around it?” Friscling told BuzzFeed News.Te database was acquired by FiscalNote and is now osted by FiscalNote’s policy news site Roll Call. It also as a collection of Trump’s tweets and social media posts, going as far back as 2009, as well as te President’s public scedule and emailed press releases from te Wite ouse.Formed in 2016 to document canges to “vulnerable” federal environmental data, te Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) is a researc collaboration of professionals advocating for environmental awareness. Its website-monitoring team created a tracker for canges to environment-related federal pages. Since returning to office, te Trump Administration as purged information or text related to te climate crisis on many government websites.Te Internet Arcive is a nonprofit tat provides users free access to its expansive digital library. Since beginning in 1996, te arcive as a collection of more tan 835 billion web pages, 44 million books and texts, 15 million audio recordings, 10.6 million videos, 4.8 million images, and a million software programs. “Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge,” it says on its site.In 2017, it launced te Trump Arcive, wic collects “TV news sows containing debates, speeces, interviews, rallies, and oter reporting related to Donald Trump, before is first presidency and trougout subsequent years.”But anybody can contribute. Described by te New Yorker as “a tec-support professional” in Kansas, a man identified only as Andrew—wo uses te moniker Grumpy—began downloading videos from federal agencies on February 1 in response to takedowns by te Trump Administration. Te videos are available on is Internet Arcive account, Grumpy System.Te Internet Arcive also operates te Wayback Macine, a tool tat preserves timestamped snapsots of websites. Like te Internet Arcive’s oter databases, iniduals can contribute to te Wayback Macine, too. Its director told NPR tat six weeks into Trump’s second term, some 73,000 government web pages (and counting) were cataloged before being expunged, including reportedly te only copy of te ouse Jan. 6 Committee’s interactive timeline of te 2021 Capitol Riot.Te Wayback Macine as also osted since 2008 te End of Term Web Arcive, wic “collects, preserves, and makes accessible United States Government websites at te end of presidential administrations.”AI-powered speec-to-text company Rev osts a free Transcript Library tat includes searcable transcripts of Trump’s public appearances going back years.Trump’s Trut, a project by te Never-Trump-Republican founded nonprofit group Defending Democracy Togeter, arcives all of Trump’s posts on is platform TRUT Social. Wile Trump’s TRUT Social posts are publicly available, te Trump’s Trut site warns tat te President’s posts on is own platform “may be deleted at any time.” Te arcive cecks for new posts “every few minutes” and includes video transcription and image descriptions to enable greater searc ability.“We believe tis is an essential part of te istorical record, and tat it must be preserved for its educational, journalistic and researc value,” te site says.
The Independent Databases Archiving the Trump Administration
