President Trump’s outrageous tweets pushed Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) to introduce legislation on Monday to classify presidential social media posts as official records that would be illegal to delete.
He even named it after one of the president’s recent Twitter gaffes: COVFEFE, aka The Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act (PDF).
I commend Rep. Quigley’s effort (and the clever name for his bill) – one of Trump’s tweets was even quoted by a federal appeals court when it voted to block the administration’s proposed travel ban, and the White House said that the President’s tweets should be regarded as official statements. But does Trump really give a shit?
He’s deleted tweets in the past, including the infamous covfefe one, and he doesn’t follow what has been accepted as protocol by previous presidents when it comes to using secure devices, including using an aging handset believed to be running an insecure version of Android and even handing out his personal phone number to foreign leaders so they can reach him directly.
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Trump’s flagrant disregard for rules means that he’ll likely either refuse to abide by the COVFEFE Act if it’s passed, or simply ignore it. When troubled by the FBI investigating his national security adviser’s ties to Russia, he simply fired the head of the agency – even when the optics of that move are clearly terrible. I wouldn’t put it past him to shrug off any legislation that’s meant to curtail his antics on Twitter.
That being said, the best that people can do at this point is fight the good fight. And that’s what Quigley is trying to do. So, more power to him and the rest trying to keep the President in check.
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