In 1972, decades worth of official and unofficial Federal Bureau of Investigation records had been destroyed, upon the death of J. Edgar Hoover, by his longtime secretary, Helen Gandy.

Thus, the presidential papers of Ronald Reagan were due to be made public when George W. Bush took office in January 2001.

They claimed that the action "violates both the spirit and letter of existing U.S. law on access to presidential papers as clearly laid down in 44 U.S.C.

John Wertman, a member of former President Bill Clinton's White House staff, wrote an op-ed piece critical of the executive order that appeared in The Washington Post on February 26, 2006.

[8] Wertman asserted that Order 13233 "represents a wholesale change in the way the federal government preserves and promotes our national public memory."

He also included a quote from former President Gerald Ford on the topic: "I firmly believe that after X period of time, presidential papers, except for the most highly sensitive documents involving our national security, should be made available to the public, and the sooner the better."

The bill passed the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which was chaired by Burton at the time, but never saw floor action.

[15] In November 2001, the National Security Archive, the American Historical Association and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in the D.C. District Court against the National Archives and Records Administration and the Archivist, claiming constitutional problems with the order, and pointing out that "access to materials may be delayed for an unlimited period of time after the expiration of the 12-year restriction period while a former president and the incumbent president ‘review’ materials proposed for release", because of § 3(b) of the order, which states After receiving the records he requests, the former President shall review those records as expeditiously as possible, and for no longer than 90 days for requests that are not unduly burdensome.