Ford signs the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, seizing Nixon's records

President Gerald Ford signed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act on December 19, 1974, voiding the Nixon-Sampson Agreement and transferring custody of Nixon's 42 million documents and 880 tape recordings to the federal government. The law required a commission to study the disposition of all federal officials' records, mandated that Nixon's materials be preserved in a federal facility, and explicitly rejected Nixon's claim to personal ownership. Nixon immediately challenged the law's constitutionality, launching litigation that would reach the Supreme Court in 1977.