Some Trump White House records were torn up and taped back together, National Archives says

Washington — Some of the documents from former President Donald Trump's White House that were turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration were torn up by the former president and had been pieced back together, the agency said.

The Archives confirmed in a statement Trump's habit of tearing up records, citing press reports from 2018 that detailed his practice. The Archives said "White House records management officials during the Trump Administration recovered and taped together some of the torn-up records. These were turned over to the National Archives at the end of the Trump Administration, along with a number of torn-up records that had not been reconstructed by the White House."

Politico reported in 2018 that the former president's unofficial "filing system" consisted of him ripping up papers and throwing them on the floor or in the trash, which led to the arduous process of taping documents back together to ensure compliance with the Presidential Records Act. The law requires memos, letters, emails and other documents be preserved and given to the Archives at the end of an administration.