Representatives Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia asked President Donald Trump in a letter dated 28 October to preserve prompts submitted to AI chatbots during official duties, along with the responses. The top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees want those exchanges kept as presidential records while they examine the White House’s use of private AI systems, Politico reported.
Key points
- Raskin and Garcia say official prompts and chatbot replies must be preserved under federal law.
- The request covers Grok, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and seeks details of safeguards for sensitive information.
- The lawmakers requested a closed-door briefing by 5:00 p.m. on 11 November.
Presidential records and four chatbots
The preservation demand covers “any prompts” Trump submitted while “carrying out your constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties”, as well as the answers he received. Raskin, of Maryland, and Garcia, of California, named Elon Musk’s Grok, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude in the request. Their account treats the conversation as a record of official activity, rather than preserving only a decision or a document produced afterwards.
The lawmakers also said questions submitted by White House aides, and the resulting answers, constituted presidential records that must be kept under federal law, Digital Journal reported in an AFP dispatch. The request extends to Google’s Gemini. Its scope therefore goes beyond the Grok exchanges that prompted the inquiry and reaches chatbot use by people working for the president.
Raskin and Garcia are the senior Democrats on committees that would come under their leadership if their party wins control of the House, according to Politico. Their letter seeks preservation of records and a briefing from the White House. The lawmakers’ description of those exchanges as presidential records is their position in the letter, not a finding made by a court or an agency in the material reported here.
Grok and the Venezuela account
The inquiry follows reports that Trump spent hours with Grok during a December 2025 Oval Office meeting with Musk. According to the account described by the lawmakers, he asked how Venezuelans might react if US forces captured President Nicolás Maduro. Grok reportedly answered that many would welcome Maduro’s removal. US forces seized Maduro weeks after that exchange, but no link between Grok’s answer and the military action has been established, Digital Journal reported.
Raskin and Garcia drew attention to the sequence between the reported question and the military action. In the wording quoted by Politico, they said Trump had sought Grok’s advice about presidential duties and had “weeks later” ordered the attack on Venezuela and Maduro’s capture without congressional authorisation. Their concern is the reported consultation of a privately controlled chatbot on a foreign-policy question, rather than an established account of its effect on the order.
The lawmakers warned that chatbot answers could be inaccurate or manipulated. They also invoked earlier controversies involving Grok’s generation of antisemitic statements and sexualised images of children. Their letter asks whether a system with that history was used for advice in the exercise of presidential duties. Those questions sit alongside the narrower preservation demand: what was entered, what came back and how the exchanges were retained.
Security safeguards and the 11 November briefing
For the closed-door briefing, Raskin and Garcia requested an account of Trump’s AI use, restrictions on entering classified information into chatbots and the handling of chatbot records. They also asked whether outside companies could access sensitive conversations. The questions address both what government users may send to a private service and who may subsequently see the material they sent.
The letter cites reporting on an AI-assisted intelligence error concerning a Chinese vessel. It also refers to allegations that heavy dependence on AI played a part in a US attack on a school in Iran in which more than 100 children died. Those are allegations the lawmakers cited while seeking answers about AI use. Neither episode, as described in the AFP dispatch, establishes a role for Grok in the military decisions.
Raskin and Garcia asked to receive the briefing by 5:00 p.m. on 11 November. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Digital Journal reported. It also reported that an official quoted by Politico said the administration preserves all records required by law.
