By Paul Musgrave / Special To The Washington Post

Last month, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of presidential records from Donald Trump’s private club at Mar-a-Lago. The initial reports conjured an incongruous image of mild-mannered, glove-wearing archivists executing a no-knock warrant to retrieve the country’s nuclear codes. Somewhere, I like to imagine, a CBS executive started notes on a pitch for another law enforcement procedural: “NARA: SWAT.”

Almost disappointingly, the retrieval of the materials appears to have been relatively sedate. Although some of the materials were marked as classified, most seem to have been innocuous items, such as a model of Trump’s proposed Air Force One redesign. Afterward, Trump advisers stressed their congenial relations with the National Archives. Trump himself put out a statement emphasizing that the papers were “given easily” and “on a very friendly basis.” (In any case, it should be noted, archivists only rarely wear white gloves.)

But don’t be deceived. For all the calm of the retrieval, the very fact that Trump could simply take the records — and that they could remain in his possession for so long — demonstrates that our institutions still haven’t adjusted to the problem of a lawless and disorderly president. The routines of presidential recordkeeping (and presidential transitions) anticipate a generous, bipartisan spirit of cooperation. So ingrained are these expectations that, even nearly seven years since Trump jumped into presidential politics, it’s hard to describe his willingness to take records the way we should: as an alleged theft of federal property.

Congress and responsible executive branch officials continue to underestimate the magnitude of the challenge, and enforcement measures remain toothless, especially during the complex transition between administrations.

Even if there were no law regarding the disposal of presidential records (as there was not until only a few decades ago), there is a moral imperative in a democracy for the public to have access to the accurate history of its leaders’ decisions. The selective withholding or destruction of records by presidents threatens that principle. History should not be flushed down the drain; or down a White House toilet, as the case may be.

But the response will have to include more than repatriating Trump’s records. Even the welcome news that NARA officials have asked the Justice Department to investigate the mishandling of the materials for possible criminal prosecution is insufficient. (The referral does suggest that relations between NARA and the Trump camp have been less friendly than Mar-a-Lago advertises.) We need to strengthen all of our institutions to better check and resist abuses of presidential power, not just tweak government recordkeeping procedures; though the latter is absolutely part of the former.

The response must be proactive. However much online liberals may hope that this is their chance to chant “lock him up,” prosecuting a former president over his handling of documents is unlikely. Guaranteeing a fair trial for such a notorious defendant would probably be difficult if not impossible; just imagine the jury selection process. Nor does this calculus change much with the revelation that there were classified materials in the collection; not least of all because Attorney General Merrick Garland tends to err on the side of caution.

The stakes are made still clearer by a more serious controversy regarding Trump’s records, involving whether the former president could stop NARA from releasing his materials to the House Jan. 6 committee. The courts have rejected Trump’s claims that turning over such materials violates executive privilege. Yet all such proceedings rest on the assumptions that the physical integrity of the records will be maintained and that they were properly created in the first place. Neither of those assumptions is safe with Trump, who regularly “tore up briefings and schedules, articles and letters, memos both sensitive and mundane” according to reporting from The Post.

A 2016 article about the transition process in NARA’s house magazine, Prologue, emphasized the size of the challenge. The Bush-Obama transition involved moving tens of thousands of cubic feet of materials, enough for two Boeing 747s, a DC-8 and 25 trucks. And that includes only properly logged and preserved materials. If presidential aides circumvent the record-keeping process, as Karl Rove and many other George W. Bush officials did by using Republican National Committee email accounts in an alleged attempt to avoid record-preservation protocols, then some records may never come to light.

Keeping track of records on that scale is a massive task. Part of the difficulty comes from structural and cultural issues within the National Archives itself. As a colleague told me when I worked at NARA’s Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum more than a decade ago, when it comes to presidential records, NARA relies to a large extent on presidents to voluntarily cooperate because “there is no NARA police.”

Improving NARA’s enforcement capacity is something Congress could do, at least at the margins. In its fiscal 2022 budget request, NARA framed its challenges for preserving presidential records in terms of updating its system to cope with modern file formats. Yet the Trump administration’s behavior shows that the issues are not technical but fundamentally political. As a small and relatively weak agency, NARA is poorly equipped to stand up to presidents and their congressional allies. Bolstering the number of NARA personnel tasked with preserving presidential records would enhance its independence. Similarly, subjecting the preservation of presidential records to stronger independent scrutiny would make flagrant violations of the law easier to detect. And the impending retirement of long-serving Archivist David Ferriero offers another chance to stiffen independent leadership at NARA.

Much of the public’s attention is focused on issues such as reforming the Electoral Count Act, strengthening voting protections and investigating administrative malfeasance. But it will also be necessary to confront archival challenges if we hope to safeguard democracy. Like rebuilding levees to be taller after a hurricane, these measures are meant to improve institutional resilience before the next storm. Choosing inaction means hoping that there won’t be another storm; a dangerous, even reckless choice.

Paul Musgrave is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.