The 'COVFEFE Act' Introduced To Preserve All Of Trump's Tweets As Presidential Record

Democratic Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois introduced the COVFEFE Act in a statement on Monday. Quigley, co-founder of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, introduced the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement (COVFEFE) Act. The name of the act was a reference to one of President Donald Trump’s tweets from May, and the bill intended to make tweets a presidential record.

Read: Donald Trump's Covfefe Tweet Elicits Hilarious Reactions On Twitter

“Despite the constant negative press covfefe,” Trump tweeted and later deleted. When asked about the meaning of the tweet at a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, “The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant.”

The word “covfefe,” which given the context of the tweet was most likely a misspelling of the word “coverage,” sparked conspiracy theories and the word was added to the Words with Friends dictionary at the beginning of June.

“The president is the president of the United States so [Trump’s tweets are] considered official statements by the president of the United States,” Spicer said on June 5, 2017.

The COVFEFE Act would amend the Presidential Records Act so that tweets and other forms of social media from a president would be considered documentary material. The act has expanded to include any social media posts shared by President Trump — not just posts shared from the official @POTUS accounts. In the past, the official @POTUS and White House Twitter accounts have been archived. Since Trump often tweets from his personal account, those tweets will be preserved — misspellings and all.

Read: Covfefe: Watch News Reporters Struggle To Pronounce Trump's Bizarre Word

“In order to maintain public trust in government, elected officials must answer for what they do and say,” Quigley said in a statement on Monday. “This includes 140-character tweets. 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.”

With the new COVFEFE Act, deleting the president’s tweets would be a violation of the Presidential Records Act. Such an action would be “subject to disciplinary action.” In 2014, the National Archives released guidance that social media deserves historical recording. Earlier this year, it advised the White House to save tweets the President posts, including those that are subsequently deleted.

Trump has deleted at least 18 tweets since the start of his presidency, according to ProPublica’s PoliTwoops.