[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9160-9161]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                COVFEFE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, the President tweeted the 
word ``covfefe.'' We still don't know what it means, why the President 
tweeted it, or if it was simply an innocent typo, something we are all 
guilty of making. But what is more important than the creation of a 
random, now infamous, word in a tweet is that the President deleted the 
post less than 12 hours later. This is just 1 of 18 tweets the 
President has deleted since his inauguration, and, each time, the 
question is raised whether or not he can legally do that, because when 
the President deletes a tweet, it is equivalent to him destroying a 
record.
  That is why I have introduced the COVFEFE Act, Communications Over 
Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement. It is a silly name, but a 
serious issue. By expanding the Presidential Records Act to include 
social media, it would ensure that all tweets posted by the President 
from his personal account are archived and preserved and would finally 
answer the question on whether or not the President can delete tweets.
  Although the bill's name is a little tongue-in-cheek, the focus of 
the legislation is more important now than ever. 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. As Sean Spicer has said, each 
@realDonaldTrump tweet should be taken as an official White House 
statement.

[[Page 9161]]



                              {time}  1015

  Tweets are powerful, and the President must be held accountable for 
every post, from commenting on NATO, to the Paris Agreement, to his 
Muslim travel ban, and his response to the devastating terror attack in 
London. And on Monday, we learned that the appellate court cited the 
President's tweet in ruling against the travel ban.
  The President's frequent unfiltered use of his personal Twitter 
account as a means of official communication is unprecedented, and we 
must respond accordingly. Sometimes it takes a creative acronym to 
drive attention to a much larger issue.
  This is the second bill I have introduced this Congress to address 
the lack of transparency in the administration. Back in March, I 
introduced the aptly named ``Mar-a-Lago Act'' to require the White 
House visitor logs, or visitor logs from any other location where the 
President conducts official business, to be made public to the American 
people.
  Unlike the Obama administration, the current administration stated 
they are unwilling to do so. For these reasons, it is critical that we 
push commonsense policy that promotes government accountability and 
transparency, because in order to maintain public trust in government, 
elected officials must answer for what they do and say. That includes 
140-character tweets and records of who has the President's ear at the 
White House, Trump Tower, or his southern Florida home. If regaining 
the public's trust is the first step, then taking action to maintain 
that trust for the long term is the next.
  Standalone transparency legislation is absolutely necessary, but it 
is not enough. We must stop treating transparency and accountability as 
peripheral issues and proactively incorporate them into everything we 
do.
  Going forward, I will continue to promote efforts to increase public 
access to the Federal Government and ensure that all elected officials 
are being held accountable for their words and their actions.

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