DOGE Terminates Obama Presidential Library Lease

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency canceled the lease for the Barack Obama Presidential Library in Chicago, although the program was already slated to move elsewhere.

The DOGE nixed the lease as part of a broad effort to reduce the physical footprint of the federal government, according to a Monday report from the Chicago Tribune.

But the federal officials with the National Archives and Records Administration who run the Barack Obama Presidential Library had previously planned to leave the property.

The agency has been leasing the facility since 2016 and has paid $1.4 million in rent each year.

The end of the Chicago lease, as well as four other facilities, is estimated to save $5 million per year, Archivist of the U.S. Colleen Shogan said last year.

“The decision to close facilities was not made lightly,” she said.

“These changes will allow us to invest in digital transformation, expanding access, improving customer service and increasing public engagement with the history of our nation.”

The website for DOGE meanwhile listed the cancellation of some 748 federal leases across all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

That included the National Archives facility that currently holds the Barack Obama Presidential Library.

The list claimed $660 million in total cost savings.

DOGE also canceled contracts for a $168,000 exhibit honoring Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institutes of Health Museum.

Charles Tiefer, a retired University of Baltimore professor and government contracting expert, asserted to the Tribune that the move may have come from “some particular malice toward the real estate holding the archives for the last really popular two-term president.”

“But it’s more likely that it’s fakery about unrealized savings, the same as in hundreds of other contracts,” he added.

The library is currently used as a storage site for over 35,000 artifacts from the Obama years.

The items in storage include a jeweled sword from Saudi Arabia, dresses worn by former First Lady Michelle Obama to inauguration ceremonies, and a baseball signed by the 2010 San Francisco Giants.

The library is located in northwest Chicago in the Hoffman Estates neighborhood.

Officials with the National Archives have been working to digitize the records held there and are planning to open the first digital presidential library this year.

The artifacts, as well as millions of hard copies of documents, will be moved to a new permanent location in College Park, Maryland.

The library is different from the much larger Obama Presidential Center in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago, which is expected to open next year.

The building is still under construction and has cost $830 million to erect, thus far.

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