March 16, 2026, 5:08 a.m. ET
Reporters want to know what the president was first told about COVID-19, researchers want to know more about Jan. 6 riot text messages and others want to see who held the president’s ear.
On Jan. 20, five years to the day after President Trump first left office, the National Archives started taking requests for records from Trump’s first term in office. More than 200 requesters got in line that day.
The requests touch on the key moments in Trump’s presidency — his ties to the Trump Organization, major geopolitical events like the airstrike in Iraq that killed Qassem Soleimani and the inside scoop on COVID-19. It also targeted players who eventually loomed large: Jared Kushner, Omarosa Manigault Newman, Cassidy Hutchinson.
A large swath of initial requests centered on impeachment efforts and a behind-the-scenes look at Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In celebration of Sunshine Week, a national initiative to “educate the public about the importance of open government and the dangers of excessive and unnecessary secrecy,” USA TODAY analyzed the more than 200 requests made to the National Archives for Trump-era information on the first day it was available on Jan. 20, 2026.
Within minutes after the process began, two dozen people filed Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, letters via email. The log includes each filer’s name and their request made by each of them.
Archivists generally respond to the requests in a “first in, first out” order, so it pays to be first in line.
Bloomberg investigative reporter Jason Leopold can claim that title. His first requests arrived just after the stroke of midnight Jan. 20. A prolific requester, Leopold writes a weekly newsletter and hosts a podcast about FOIA.
“I get excited whenever presidential records become subject to FOIA.” Leopold said. “I already knew what I was going to request so I was ready. I’m on the West Coast so it was only 9 p.m. here when NARA started accepting requests for Trump’s presidential records.”
It will likely take years for some of Leopold’s requests to come back. He noted he’s still waiting on records from the Obama and Bush presidencies and just received records about a 9/11 detainee more than a decade after his request.
Leopold and others requested documents that were “crumpled and thrown in the trash, torn, shredded or flushed down the toilet,” in a nod to reporting that White House staff occasionally discovered wads of printed paper clogging toilets.
Several requesters asked for records from the president’s daily diary, or PDD, not in Trump’s own hand, but rather the official record-keeping that shows the president’s movements and discussions down to the minute each day.
Trump’s PDD was released for Jan. 6 as part of the Congressional inquiry. But it mysteriously contained a gap of seven hours and 37 minutes during the Capitol attack.
Others requested the “memcons and telcons” short for memoranda of conversations which serve as key records of meetings with foreign leaders. Requesters paid particular attention to calls and meetings with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, China’s Xi Jinping and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Washington Post’s FOIA Director Nate Jones has his requests near the front of the line. He’s still waiting on records from the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama libraries. In 2023, Jones pried loose and published a cache of photos from the day Osama bin Laden was killed.
For this effort, the first request was focused on Trump’s knowledge of the death of Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
“It shows this is the Post’s number one priority in the history of the first Trump administration,” Jones told USA TODAY. “The public would have a much better understanding of these events by seeing the full records from the Trump library.”
Planning for Trump’s physical library are in their early stages, but are in progress in southern Florida with millions of dollars from legal settlements in hand.
Not all 200-plus requests submitted the first day came from journalists. Records show requests from the conservative Heritage Foundation, left-leaning non-profit American Oversight and Canadian UFO hunter Grant Cameron.
“The records we seek are vital to understanding who made decisions, how power was exercised behind closed doors, and what was planned,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director at American Oversight. “Preserving and releasing them is essential to real oversight, meaningful accountability, and a public record that allows the country to understand what happened and respond accordingly.”
British journalist Martin Rosenbaum requested Trump records related to Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Rosenbaum said the American FOIA process generally provides more information than its United Kingdom counterpart, but it comes with a trade-off.
“There seems to be less concern about secrecy, and less material is withheld,” Rosenbaum wrote to USA TODAY. “On the other hand, the delays of several years for this kind of information are really extreme and to my mind completely unjustifiable. By the time the material is released, it’s probably a lot less relevant and valuable.”
Average Americans interested in records are also in the queue, like frequent FOIA-requester Shannon Berlant, who’s near the front of the line for records about Trump’s alleged consideration of clemency for Julian Assange.
“It’s exciting to be among the first, but realistically I won’t be holding my breath – it will likely be years before I receive any records,” Berland said.
If requesters don’t want to patiently wait around for months or years, they can also consider suing to accelerate the process. That’s the route Kel McClanahan, an attorney with National Security Counselors took. Eight of his requests, including one about Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, are already in litigation.
“Look at the chaos that is unfolding around us now, and think about how the stage for a lot of it was set in the first Trump administration,” McClanahan wrote via email to USA TODAY. “If we can get records about what they did back then, it will help us understand and push back against their excesses today.”
