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President Trump has fired Archivist of the United States Colleen J. Shogan, the government official responsible for preserving and providing access to government records. Sergio Gor, director of the Presidential Personnel Office, announced Shogan’s dismissal Friday night. Shogan has held the job since 2023. “At the direction of @realDonaldTrump the Archivist of the United States has been dismissed tonight,” Gor wrote on X. “We thank Colleen Shogan for her service.”
Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan speaks at her swearing-In ceremony at the National Archives on Sept. 11, 2023, in Washington, D.C.
Alex Brandon / AP
The move isn’t unexpected. Mr. Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt earlier this month that “we will have a new archivist.” On Thursday, however, a senior archivist official told CBS News there was “no word that anything is changing.” “The archivist looks forward to continuing her strong working relationship with the president and first lady,” the official said at the time.
The archivist of the United States, who oversees the National Archives and Records Administration, is typically an apolitical role that receives little attention. But Mr. Trump has expressed ire toward the agency in the past, after it was a key player in the case about his mishandling of classified records. When he left office in early 2021, Mr. Trump allegedly took dozens of boxes of presidential papers, including nearly 340 documents bearing classified markings, to his home in Florida. Mr. Trump was eventually charged with 40 felonies, including for allegedly refusing to turn over some of the papers. But after Mr. Trump won the election in November, then-special counsel Jack Smith removed him from the case due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. NARA referred all requests for comment to the White House.
Ed O’Keefe
contributed to this report.
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Kathryn Watson
Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C.
