Trump Admin's Agency Records Purge Tests Judicial Notice
Courts often take judicial notice of uncontroversial and well-established facts, many of them sourced from government websites and reports. But changes to government reports and websites by the Trump administration may cast doubt on that practice.
Litigants should consider taking proactive steps to preserve archived government websites or seek alternative sources of information. Ultimately, some of the Trump administration's actions may mean that the legal profession has to rethink the concept of judicial notice.
Judicial Notice Under Rule 201 and Government Sources
Rule 201 of the Federal Rules of Evidence permits courts to take judicial notice of a fact that is "not subject to reasonable dispute" because it "can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned."[1] Courts routinely conclude that federal government websites and reports fit this requirement.
For instance, they have relied on the CIA World Factbook for information about political structures, legal systems and demographics of foreign states;[2] the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website for public health information;[3] and the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights for relevant findings, particularly in immigration matters.[4]
These sources were known to distill institutional and historically unbiased expertise and so attracted judicial citation.
Disruption During the Trump Administration
The Trump administration's changes to the content and thus reliability of government-maintained resources cast doubt on whether judicial notice of these materials remains wise and even proper under Rule 201. While other administrations have previously modified conclusions (recall alterations to climate reports under President George W. Bush that minimized links between emissions and global warming),[5] the Trump administration's alteration and removal of already published government sources appear unique in their scale and speed.[6]
According to a Feb. 2, 2025, article in The New York Times, just one month into the Trump administration, more than 8,000 government webpages were removed or modified.[7] The CIA World Factbook has been discontinued.[8] Large chunks of the CDC website have been removed or modified, particularly content related to climate change and public health policy. And State Department Country Reports have been shortened, with substantive sections removed.
The chain of events related to the CDC website changes has been particularly interesting.
Following litigation in Doctors for America v. Office of Personnel Management, and under a Feb. 11, 2025, order from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services restored materials to the CDC website, including those concerning the national campaign to end the HIV epidemic.[9] HHS also included the disclaimer that the webpage was restored pursuant to court order and "does not reflect reality and therefore the Administration and this Department reject it."[10]
The pared-down State Department Country Reports on Human Rights, too, are worth consideration.
Since 1977, the U.S. Department of State has published these reports as mandated by law; they cover individual, civil, political and worker rights in countries around the world.
The 2023 Country Reports included a preface describing the dedicated public servants who gather and track the information and the reports' usefulness in connecting "U.S. diplomatic and foreign assistance efforts to the fundamental American value of protecting and promoting respect for human rights for all, while helping to inform the work of civil society, human rights defenders, scholars, multilateral institutions, and others."[11]
The 2024 Country Reports (published in August 2025) do not include this preface, and whole sections addressing prison conditions, extrajudicial violence and systemic abuse have been shortened or removed.[12] In the same month, NPR published a side-by-side comparison of the various sections and subsections that were removed, including those addressing prison conditions, governments' use of national security as a pretext for punishing critics, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, corruption in government, and discrimination and societal abuse of LGBTQI persons.[13]
The 2024 Country Reports compared to earlier-published ones offer markedly different depictions of their subject countries. For instance, the report regarding El Salvador contained nearly 78% fewer words than the previous year's report and removes references to poor prison conditions, noting only that there "were no credible reports of significant human rights abuses."[14] These alterations follow the administration's removal of individuals to El Salvador, including Andry Hernández Romero and Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Circumstances like these highlight the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's warning in the 2025 decision in CITGO Petroleum Corp. v. Ascot Underwriting Ltd. that "caution must be used in determining that a fact is beyond controversy under Rule 201(b)," because "the effect of judicial notice is to deprive a party of the opportunity to use rebuttal evidence, cross-examination, and argument to attack contrary evidence."[15]
These Changes Matter
The discontinuance of the CIA World Factbook removes a long-cited source of facts concerning nation states, peoples and global history. Without it, litigants and courts must find alternative and perhaps less credible sources for such basic information.
The CDC website disclaimer too disrupts standard practices. By declaring that the site "does not reflect reality," the website itself undermines Rule 201's requirement that the matter not be "reasonably questioned," and should give parties and courts pause when citing it. Indeed, the government's repudiation could render that content unnoticeable under Rule 201.
And the hollowed-out Country Reports are already affecting decisions.
For example, in a Jan. 14 decision, Fuentes-Pineda v. Bondi, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit cited the current State Department report on El Salvador for the conclusion that an asylum seeker could not show that it was more likely than not that he would be tortured if removed to El Salvador.[16] The opinion, however, did not address the content expunged from the prior year's report, which contained an extensive discussion of abusive conditions in the country.
The latest report mentions "torture" only three times and contains three paragraphs concerning torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the previous year's report mentioned torture eight times and offered an extensive discussion of torture and the deplorable conditions in prison and detention centers.[17]
These types of alterations undermine the historical and assumed accuracy of government publications and thus could (and perhaps should) lead to a reduction in the types and sources of information that courts judicially notice. These alterations also raise a deeper concern: Can judicial notice survive this administration's revisions to the public record?
Possible Solutions — Archiving and Other Resources
Given these changes, litigants seeking judicial notice should consider saving older versions of government webpages or using internet archiving services to access them. Indeed, courts have shown a willingness to cite archived versions of government websites.[18] Litigants should also consider downloading and saving government reports, including those published to the Federal Register, obtaining discovery from the federal government, and citing congressional committee, inspector general, and/or state government reports.
This archiving strategy, however, has an inherent sunset problem. Archived facts risk becoming stale, particularly in areas where circumstances evolve, like politics or demography. It also requires the court to adopt an older version of a government resource over the current one, inherently asking the court to weigh the accuracy of content. Perhaps litigants can lean into the increasing judicial frustration with the administration's political maneuvers in court — some judges have openly complained that the administration has lost the courts' trust[19] — to convince a judge that an older report is more reliable than a more recent one.
Similarly, litigants faced with opponents seeking judicial notice of recent government websites or reports that significantly alter older versions should consider offering the older versions to dispute the more recent ones and thus foreclose judicial notice.
Other options include obtaining discovery from the federal government using requests under the Freedom of Information Act or the framework stemming from U.S. ex rel. Touhy v. Ragen, or citing congressional committee or commission publications, inspector general reports, and/or state government publications. Discovery obtained from the federal government may enable parties to reveal political or other undue pressure placed on careerists who resisted changes to websites and/or reports, which could undermine reliance on newer, more polarized resources.
Congressional committee, commission reports and inspector general reports too can be revealing in the face of altered government resources. Contrast the report published by the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol with the new White House website disparaging the same and rewriting the events of and leading to that day and with the administration's recent purge of Jan. 6 prosecutions.[20]
State reports, particularly those state reports from state agencies that are not captured or perceived to be captured by political forces, too can be helpful, including on local concerns such as environmental, public health or land matters.[21] These state-level publications, however, are unlikely to replace the defunct CIA World Factbook or the State Department Country Reports, which derived their international expertise from the supremacy of the federal government in foreign affairs.
Conclusion
Judicial notice of government websites and reports has long been a low-risk tool for litigants and courts. But these resources are not what they once were. Until courts articulate clearer standards for addressing expansively altered sources or the alterations are reversed, preservation of older resources or the use of alternative ones may be the best option for litigants and courts.
Jon A. Gryskiewicz is a partner at Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss PLLC.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employer, its clients, or Portfolio Media Inc., or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
[1] FRE 201(b).
[2] Sadiki v. Gonzales, 218 F. App'x 27, 29 n.1 (2d Cir. 2007) (citing CIA World Factbook and taking judicial notice that Serbia and Montenegro are separate nations and that Kosovo was an autonomous province within Serbia); Philipps v. Talty, 555 F. Supp. 2d 265, 267 n.2 (D.N.H. 2008) (citing CIA World Factbook and taking judicial notice of St. Martin/St. Maarten's location and its political and legal division between France and the Netherlands); Sulieman v. Roswell Park Cancer Inst., No. 05-CV-0766A(F), 2007 WL 1851640, at *5 (W.D.N.Y. June 27, 2007), subsequent history omitted (citing CIA World Factbook and taking judicial notice that Iraq's population is 97% Muslim).
[3] Gent v. CUNA Mut. Ins. Soc'y, 611 F.3d 79, 84 n. 5 (1st Cir. 2010) (citing CDC website and taking judicial notice of particulars of Lyme disease).
[4] Ayele v. Holder, 564 F.3d 862, 873 (7th Cir. 2009), as amended (July 14, 2009) (citing State Department country report for Ethiopia and taking judicial notice of the same).
[5] NYT link (edits to climate reports); see LAT link (engagement finding suppressed by George W. Bush Administration).
[6] NYT link.
[7] "Thousands of U.S. Government Web Pages Have Been Taken Down Since Friday," Feb. 2, 2025, New York Times.
[8] CIA link.
[9] See Drs. for Am. v. Off. of Pers. Mgmt., 766 F. Supp. 3d 39 (D.D.C. 2025). Interestingly, the court here rejected the Wayback Machine as a substitute for the website's remaining live when the government argued that the archived pages prevented plaintiffs from showing irreparable harm. Id. at 54 nn.4-5.
[10] CDC link.
[11] DOS 2023 Report Homepage link.
[12] Compare DOS 2023 Report Homepage link with DOS 2024 Report Homepage link.
[13] NPR DOS link.
[14] NPR DOS link.
[15] CITGO Petroleum Corp. v. Ascot Underwriting Ltd., 158 F.4th 368, 387–88 (2d Cir. 2025) (quoting Int'l Star Class Yacht Racing Ass'n v. Tommy Hilfiger U.S.A., Inc., 146 F.3d 66, 70 (2d Cir. 1998)).
[16] Fuentes-Pineda v. Bondi, 170 F.4th 914, 917-20, n.2 (5th Cir. 2026).
[17] Compare 2023 Report (link) with 2024 Report (link).
[18] CLF 007 v. CooperSurgical, Inc., No. 6:24-CV-00990-AA, 2026 WL 308817, at *3 (D. Or. Feb. 5, 2026) (taking judicial notice of "archived article from the CDC website"); Pohl v. MH Sub I, LLC, 332 F.R.D. 713, 716 (N.D. Fla. 2019) ("This Court follows the lead of the overwhelming number of courts that have decided the issue and takes judicial notice of the contents of WayBack Machine evidence . . . .") (citing cases); UL LLC v. Space Chariot Inc., 250 F. Supp. 3d 596, 604 n.2 (C.D. Cal. 2017) (taking judicial notice of "the archived SpaceChariot.com webpages") (citing cases); see Lee v. Springer Nature Am., Inc., 769 F. Supp. 3d 234, 249-50 (S.D.N.Y. 2025) (noting judicial consensus that Wayback Machine displays contents of webpages but doubting it "accurately reflects the complex functionality of a webpage at an earlier time, as opposed to simply the content it contained"); but see Weinhoffer v. Davie Shoring, Inc., 23 F.4th 579, 584 (5th Cir. 2022) (holding district court abused discretion in taking judicial notice of archived website because the "Wayback Machine is not self-authenticating" and so "falls short of being a source whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned as required by Rule 201"); EVO Brands, LLC v. Al Khalifa Grp. LLC, 657 F. Supp. 3d 1312, 1323 (C.D. Cal. 2023) ("The Court therefore takes judicial notice of the Archive.org screen captures, subject to challenge at trial for authenticity, but does not take notice of the truth of their contents.").
[19] In re Search of One Device & Two Individuals under Rule 41, 784 F. Supp. 3d 234, 244 n.10 (D.D.C. 2025) (opining that "trust that had been earned over generations has been lost in weeks" by Department of Justice); https://whyy.org/articles/nj-us-attorney-districtjudge- testimony/ (amid controversy over AUSA appointment, quoting court as observing: "You have lost the confidence and the trust of this Court. You have lost the confidence and the trust of the New Jersey legal community, and you are losing the trust and confidence of the public.").
[20] Compare Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Rpt. 117-663) (link) and Select Committee Website (link) with White House (A Day Which Will Live In Infamy) (link) and NPR news article detailing Administration's deleting of guilty pleas, jury verdicts and prison sentences from government websites (link).
[21] Swindol v. Aurora Flight Sciences Corp., 805 F.3d 516, 518-19 (5th Cir. 2015) (taking judicial notice of records on state government websites to establish corporation's principal place of business for diversity jurisdiction); Conte v. Kingston NH Operations LLC, 585 F. Supp. 3d 218, 235 (N.D.N.Y. 2022) (taking judicial notice of state department of health announcements and guidance); Middleton v. Andino, 488 F. Supp. 3d 261, 267 n.3 (D.S.C. 2020) (taking judicial notice of various state government websites "that the court deems pertinent to the matters before the court"); Committee to Protect our Agricultural Water v. Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, 235 F. Supp. 3d 1132, 1151-53 (2017) (taking judicial notice of, inter alia, California state government reports).