By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio is no longer the acting archivist of the United States, a spokesman of the National Archives and Records Administration said on Thursday.
The national archivist is responsible for overseeing government records and heads the National Archives, an agency Trump used to criticize after it alerted the Justice Department to his handling of classified documents in 2022.
Within weeks of taking office last year, Trump fired then-U.S. Archivist Colleen Shogan and appointed Rubio as acting head of the archives, one of many hats he has worn in the administration.
Rubio’s many roles, which have sparked jokes and spawned internet memes, underscore the trust Trump has in him, even though the two exchanged insults a decade ago when running against each other for the Republican presidential nomination.
He has been central to Trump’s push for U.S. oversight of Venezuela after the seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the president’s crackdown against pro-Palestinian protesters through revocations of visas and green cards.
Rubio stepped back from the National Archives job in compliance with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which limits how long officials can serve in Senate-confirmed roles in an acting capacity, NARA General Counsel Matt Dummermuth said in an email.
Rubio has delegated his authority at the National Archives to James Byron, who was a senior adviser to the archivist, Dummermuth said.
The FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022 as part of an investigation into removal of official presidential records from the White House after his first term. The National Archives had been seeking the documents. Trump was subsequently indicted and the case was dropped after he won the 2024 election.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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