Trump dismisses archivist to the United States
President Donald Trump has terminated the head of the National Archives and Records Administration, targeting an independent agency that was involved in trying to recover documents he took to his Florida estate after his first presidential term.
Colleen J. Shogan was named archivist of the United States by President Joe Biden in 2022 and confirmed to her role in 2023, a year after the Archives referred its search for documents in Trump’s possession to the FBI. On Friday evening, Shogan wrote on LinkedIn that Trump “fired” her.
The independent agency she led, known as NARA, oversees research facilities as well as 13 presidential libraries and 14 regional archives. It also houses many of the country’s founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence. It also holds 13 billion pages of text and 10 million maps, charts and drawings, as well as tens of millions of photographs, films and other records.
“No cause or reason was cited. It has been an honor serving as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I have zero regrets — I absolutely did my best every day for the National Archives and the American people,” Shogan said on LinkedIn. In a subsequent statement, Shogan told The Washington Post, “It was an honor to serve as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I did so with integrity, patriotism, and honor.”
Sergio Gor, the director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, confirmed Shogan’s dismissal.
“At the direction of @realDonaldTrump the Archivist of the United States has been dismissed tonight. We thank Colleen Shogan for her service,” Gor wrote on the social media platform X.
The Archives may be one of the most apolitical arms of the federal bureaucracy, but in 2022, it became the target of public ire from Trump and his allies when the agency sought to retain documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate. When they recovered 15 boxes from Trump’s home in January 2022, agency officials found a mess of disorganized papers lacking any inventory.
Highly classified material was mixed in with newspaper clippings and dinner menus. And Archives officials believed more items were still missing. The Archives then took the extraordinary step of referring the matter to the FBI — sparking a high-profile investigation that led to an August 2022 raid of the estate, which yielded classified material.
Shogan, however, was not the head of the Archives at the time the agency was dealing with the document recovery efforts. Her first Senate confirmation hearing took place in September 2022 — about six weeks after the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search. She was confirmed by the Senate in May 2023 with all but three Republican senators opposing her nomination.
Trump had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in refusing to turn over documents, at times suggesting that the records were his and should not be returned to the Archives.
Federal prosecutors, in an investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith, charged Trump with illegally hoarding classified documents from his presidency and conspiring with aides to cover up his actions. He faced 40 charges in total, but a judge last year dismissed the federal indictment against Trump. Smith resigned from the Justice Department just before Inauguration Day, and late last month, DOJ fired more than a dozen officials who worked on Smith’s investigations into Trump’s criminal cases.
The dismissal of the nation’s record keeper marks the latest effort by the new Trump administration to reshape the federal government, with attempted changes that have included a sweeping buyout offer for federal employees, a purge of some 15 inspectors general across different federal agencies and the gutting of the nation’s foreign aid agency, USAID.
William J. Bosanko, deputy archivist of the United States, sent a notice to all National Archives employees to inform them that Shogan had been dismissed from her position.
“In accordance with statute, I am temporarily assuming the role as Acting Archivist,” Bosanko wrote in the notice, according to a copy shared with The Post. “We will share more information with you as soon as possible.”
Shogan was the first woman to serve as archivist. She was previously senior vice president and director of the David M. Rubenstein Center at the White House Historical Association. She also held roles at the U.S. Senate and the Library of Congress.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that during her tenure leading the Archives, Shogan was accused by longtime employees of making changes to exhibits in the National Archives Museum that amounted to censorship. She also invited Melania Trump to speak at a naturalization ceremony at the Archives in 2023 where Shogan presented the former first lady with copies of the conviction record of Susan B. Anthony, who was arrested on charges of casting a ballot before women had the right to vote in the United States, and Trump’s 2020 presidential pardon of Anthony.
Shogan’s predecessor, David S. Ferriero, left his role in 2022, telling The Post that he decided to retire partly because he was worried about the political future.
“It’s important to me, that this administration replace me,” he said in 2022. “I’m concerned about what’s going to happen in 2024. I don’t want it left to … the unknowns of the presidential election.”
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• Jacob Bogage, Hannah Natanson, Jacqueline Alemany and Isaac Arnsdorf contributed.