politics

Why we should care that Donald Trump is deleting his tweets.

This week in TrumpLand, a curious letter reportedly arrived on the US President’s desk, demanding he stop breaking the rules with his constant tweeting.

Confused? Let’s backtrack.

Donald Trump, the avid Twitter enthusiast he is, may be a fan of sharing wild 140-character messages with his tens of millions of fans, but it appears he is not so keen on ye olde spell check.

While one could reasonably think his proliferation of fake news could justify an investigation, it was Trump’s tendency to delete official typo-laden tweets that apparently landed him in hot water with the White House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

According to The Huffington Post, a warning letter that explained deleting tweets is against the Presidential Records Act was signed by Rep Jason Chaffetz and Rep. Elijah Cummings. The Act, which assures the public access to President Trump’s official business, prohibits the deletion of public statements without archiving them.

Notably, when President Obama’s administration was in power, a system was activated to auto-archive his tweets to avoid this very issue.

A further issue is that President Trump uses two Twitter accounts: his official White House account @POTUS, and the account he used long before the inauguration, @realDonaldTrump.

A third sore point is that personal emails have been used to communicate within the White House – something that reportedly prompted the committee to request staffers receive proper training on archival rules and email conduct.

So, why should we care?

In a time when the mainstream media and its news are being attacked, transparency is crucial. Information is crucial. Records are crucial.

While a typo here and there might not point to anything sinister, a bending of the rules can open the floodgates for a flurry of misconduct in the future.

Disappearing information doesn’t just create an air of mystery, it feeds into a dangerous culture of secrecy.

And when it comes to Donald Trump?

I’m not sure we can risk that.