Feb. 1 (UPI) — The National Archives and Records Administration confirmed Monday that some of the records presented to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots had been ripped up and taped back together.
The National Archives said that records turned over to the committee “included paper records that had been torn up” by former President Donald Trump, in a statement shared with The Washington Post and CNN.
The agency did not clarify how officials knew Trump had ripped up the records himself but cited reporting that White House records management staff had to tape together documents that were destroyed during his presidency.
It said that the taped together records were sent to the committee along with “a number of torn-up records” that had not been reconstructed by the White House.
“The Presidential Records Act requires that all records created by presidents be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations,” the agency noted.
During his tenure in the White House, Trump was known for tearing records into shreds, sometimes as small as confetti, and tossing them onto the floor, leaving them for records management analysts to tape them back together, Politico reported in 2018.
The National Archves turned over more than 700 documents related to the Jan. 6 siege after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s request to block the release of the records.
Legal records have indicated that the documents included presidential diaries, schedules, appointment information, handwritten notes related to the events of Jan. 6, speeches, remarks and more.
