House Republicans say the White House may have violated the law by altering the transcripts of President Biden’s “garbage” remarks Tuesday night.

White House Counsel Edward Siskel was told in a letter from two key House Republicans that political spin doctors were “releasing a false transcript” of Mr. Biden’s words about supporters of former President Donald Trump.

“The move is not only craven, but it also appears to be a violation of federal law, including the Presidential Records Act of 1978,” said the letter signed by Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York, House Republican Conference chairwoman, and James Comer of Kentucky, House oversight committee chairman.

“White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more politically on message,” the two lawmakers wrote.

Ms. Stefanik and Mr. Comer told Mr. Siskel to “retain and preserve all documents and internal communications regarding President Biden’s statement and the release of the inaccurate transcript.”

The Republican lawmakers posted copies of their letter on the social-media site X.

In denouncing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s now-notorious joke about Puerto Rico being “a floating island of garbage,” Mr. Biden said Tuesday on a Hispanic-outreach call that “the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

But the White House transcript, contrary to the live feed of his remarks at the time, had Mr. Biden saying “the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters’.”

While using the possessive rather than the plural does mean he wouldn’t be calling Mr. Trump’s supporters garbage, the resulting thought is odd — that Mr. Biden somehow noticed how many beer cans, hot-dog wrappers, etc., that Mr. Trump’s supporters had left at Madison Square Garden.

It also sits uneasily alongside the White House’s two spin efforts Tuesday night — that he was referring only to comic Tony Hinchcliffe and to Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about immigration. It’d also be inconsistent with reactions from Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic candidates Wednesday.