Demands for Trump's AI Chat Logs Center on 2025 Venezuela Operation

Two hours. That is how long President Donald Trump spent questioning an artificial intelligence chatbot in the Oval Office during a December 2025 meeting with Elon Musk.

Representatives Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Robert Garcia of California formally requested that the White House preserve those conversations on October 30. The letter targets prompts and responses generated by Grok, ChatGPT, and Claude. Raskin and Garcia are currently the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees. They would lead those bodies if Democrats win the House in next week's midterm elections.

The inquiry focuses on a specific sequence of events involving Venezuela. According to an official present at the meeting, Trump asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the United States captured President Nicolás Maduro. The chatbot replied that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator. It predicted that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall.

The letter notes that just weeks later, Trump ordered a military operation to seize Maduro. He did not seek congressional authorization for the attack. Celebrations erupted in the streets of Venezuela following the capture. Officials familiar with the president's thinking say he concluded that Grok was ingenious based on that interaction.

Raskin and Garcia described the episode as deeply troubling. They argued that Trump consulted Grok but not Congress on the military deployment to Venezuela. The lawmakers stated that this action circumvented Congress's constitutional power to declare war. They warned that the use of AI in foreign policy decision-making exposes the United States to acute national security risks. They also cited the vulnerability to malign influence from unknown and unaccountable third parties.

The demand relies on the Presidential Records Act. This law was enacted after the Watergate scandal and makes presidential records the property of the public. Amendments passed in 2014 extended the law to include electronic records. The statute applies to the content of information rather than the medium that holds it. This standard appears to reach chatbot exchanges tied to official duties.

However, the law does not explicitly mention AI. The most direct federal guidance comes from the National Archives under the Federal Records Act. That language treats prompts and outputs as records only if captured and saved in an agency system. Critics say this limits its reach for commercial chatbots. In April, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel declared the Act unconstitutional. The White House told a court its staff are still preserving work-related materials. A federal judge ordered the administration in May to preserve presidential records for now.

A Trump Administration official stated that the White House preserves all required records in accordance with the law. The official declined to answer specific questions from the letter. A spokesperson for Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Raskin and Garcia requested a briefing on the matter by 5 p.m. on November 11.

The preservation request arrives as Democrats prepare for the possibility of reclaiming congressional investigative powers. A Democratic-controlled House could use committee hearings, document requests, and subpoenas to examine how the administration conducts official business. The response to this letter will show how the White House handles the scrutiny that awaits in the final years of Trump's presidency.