Now, the Archivist acting with the approval of the current President can ignore a former President's wishes. Actually, it's a bit more dramatic than that. Se

Now, the Archivist acting with the approval of the current President can ignore a former President's wishes. Actually, it's a bit more dramatic than that. Section 4(b) says "the Archivist shall abide by any instructions given him by the incumbent President or his designee unless otherwise directed by a final court order." Under this executive order, the Archivst acts under the instruction of the current President. That same section gives the former President 30 days notice before his records get released. If the former President wants to assert executive privilege (and the current President disagrees) the former President has to get a court to help him out. This will make it fairly expensive to assert executive privilege, but it also provides judicial oversight over claims of executive privilege by former Presidents. Checks and balances, baby!