BREAKING: Trump Nominates Bradford P. Wilson as Archivist
The ultra-conservative, who does not meet the qualifications, belongs to anti-gay and "traditionalist" organizations
President Donald Trump today nominated Bradford P. Wilson for the position of Archivist of the United States, a statutorily non-partisan position leading the independent federal agency, the National Archives and Records Administration. The office has been vacant for more than a year since Trump fired then-Archivist Colleen Shogan without cause, nor the required notification to Congress.
Wilson was most recently the James Wilson Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University. He earlier served as Executive Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Federal law requires that any nominee have “the professional qualifications required to perform the duties and responsibilities of the office of Archivist.”
According to publicly available information, Wilson has no experience in the federal government nor in leading any large organizations, nor executive-administrative experience that would qualify someone to lead a complex, widely distributed independent federal agency such as NARA.
Wilson also appears to have no relevant, required professional qualifications in archives, federal records, or any directly related field.
But Wilson does have a long record in ultra-conservative academia and “traditionalist” organizations. He is a senior research fellow in the anti-LGBTQIA+ Witherspoon Institute. And Wilson is president of the Association for the Study of Free Institutions, which seeks to counter what it sees as progressive trends in education. Wilson is also on the Advisory Council of the Great Hearts Institute, a charter-school organization.
The same federal law requires that the nominee be appointed “without regard to political affiliations.”
As I reported last year, earlier partisan Archivists significantly damaged NARA, federal recordkeeping, and, most importantly, agency staff.
The position requires Senate confirmation; the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has primary jurisdiction over the National Archives, and would consider the nomination. At the time of publication, the committee had not scheduled a confirmation hearing.