U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley's "covfefe" bill, filed in the House on Monday, would make President Donald Trump's tweets official records.
The bill, an acronym for the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act, was named for the mysterious Trump tweet in late May that has since been deleted, reported CBS News.
If passed, the president's social media messages would be officially covered under the Presidential Records Act, which governs the archival records of the presidency, including the preservation and publication of the records.
"In order to maintain public trust in government, elected officials must answer for what they do and say; this includes 140-character tweets," Quigley said on his website. "President Trump's frequent, unfiltered use of his personal Twitter account as a means of official communication is unprecedented.”
"If the President is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference. Tweets are powerful, and the President must be held accountable for every post."
While President Barack Obama activated the first presidential Twitter account in May 2015 and handed over the @POTUS account to the current commander-in-chief after the election, Trump has chosen to keep his personal account, @realDonaldTrump, active, noted CNBC.
Trump has used his personal account to comment on official presidential business as well as tweak his opponents since he has been in office. The "covfefe" tweet in May read, "Despite the constant negative press covfefe," said CBS News.
The Hill reported that while many people believed the tweet was a typo, Press Secretary Sean Spicer told journalists that Trump intentionally used the term.
"The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant," Spicer said.
Quigley's bill would make deleting Trump's tweets, as he did with the original "covfefe" post, a violation of the Presidential Records Act, subject to disciplinary action.
National Archives and Records Administration spokeswoman Miriam Kleiman told The Associated Press in January that that Trump's tweets already are considered presidential records that need to be preserved for historic purposes, but had never addressed the issue of deleted tweets.
In March, Quigley introduced the Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness (MAR-A-LAGO) Act in an effort to make the visitor logs to the White House and other location where President Trump regularly conducts official business open to the public.
Mar-a-Lago is an estate owned by Trump in Palm Beach, Florida where he has hosted foreign dignitaries such as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping so far, noted Voice of America.
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