Trump Fires Nation’s Archivist in Latest Round of Personnel Purge
The nation’s archivist, Colleen Shogan, said on social media Friday night she had been fired by President Trump, in the latest act of retribution against a perceived foe that the president had promised to deliver upon returning to the White House.
It was leaders of her agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, who raised concerns about Mr. Trump possessing boxes of classified documents that he had taken after he left office in 2021, setting off a criminal case against him.
Ms. Shogan announced her firing on her professional LinkedIn page.
“This evening, President Trump fired me,” Ms. Shogan wrote. “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.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in a post on social media, Sergio Gor, who runs the presidential personnel office, confirmed Ms. Shogan’s dismissal.
Ms. Shogan, the first woman appointed to the typically apolitical role, was something of an unusual target for Mr. Trump. She was not involved in the criminal investigations into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents, and was not the leader of the Archives when it raised concerns about Mr. Trump.
She had also had high-profile clashes with the Biden administration. Last year, she blocked attempts by Democratic lawmakers to add a 28th amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, to enshrine gender equality into the Constitution. Ms. Shogan refused to publish the amendment on the grounds that it had not met the necessary requirements, even after President Joseph R. Biden, who appointed her, declared that it did.
But her affiliation with an agency despised by Mr. Trump appeared to be all the justification he needed to dismiss her. The Archives, which is responsible for issuing and preserving the nation’s records, alerted the Justice Department in early 2022 about Mr. Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents after it learned that he had taken more than a dozen boxes of presidential records to Mar-a-Lago, his private residence and club in Florida, after he left office.
Ms. Shogan began leading the agency in May 2023. But on the day that his electoral win was slated to be certified last month, Mr. Trump vowed that he would replace Ms. Shogan during an interview with a conservative radio host who told Mr. Trump his “problems” with the documents case came about because the archivist at the time “hated you.”
“I think I can tell you that we will get somebody — yes,” Mr. Trump said. “We will have a new archivist.”
The F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 after trying for more than a year to get Mr. Trump to return documents. The case eventually led to Mr. Trump’s being charged by the special counsel Jack Smith with mishandling classified documents and obstructing the Justice Department investigation.
The case was ultimately dismissed last year by a judge Mr. Trump had appointed on the grounds that Mr. Smith had been unlawfully appointed to his job.
