Nearly every president since George Washington has kept a personal diary while in office, with the possible exception of Donald Trump. It appears that most vice presidents have done the same. These diaries have served many purposes: They have provided the chief executives with an outlet for their most intense and personal feelings; a way to talk to themselves in the loneliest job in the world; an outlet for the pressures the job inevitably brings. The diaries have also served as a unique glimpse, all posthumously, into the hidden events that shape our world. As one federal judge put it, a president’s diary and notes “touch the core of the presidency as well as intimate and confidential communications by the president with himself.” John Quincy Adams called his diary a “second conscience.”

Yet, the legal status of presidential and vice presidential diaries became unsettled following a report issued by Robert Hur—the special counsel appointed to investigate the self-disclosed discovery of classified documents in President Joe Biden’s former office and home—in February 2024. This legal uncertainty injects confusion and jeopardy into one of the most important means by which our chief executives help themselves to be grounded while performing the world’s hardest jobs.