Destruction of Presidential Records: Torn Documents, Flushed Papers, and Missing White House Files
Tier 3Documented2017-01-20 to 2022-02-07
Factual Summary
The Presidential Records Act (44 U.S.C. Sections 2201-2209) requires the preservation of all presidential records, including documents, correspondence, and memoranda created or received by the president or his staff in the course of official duties. During and after Donald Trump's presidency, multiple sources documented a pattern of destruction and mishandling of presidential records in apparent violation of this statute.
White House staff reported during Trump's presidency that he routinely tore up documents after reading them, including briefing papers, memos, and letters. Under the Presidential Records Act, these documents were required to be preserved. Records management staff in the White House were tasked with taping the torn documents back together so they could be archived. Politico first reported in June 2018 that career records management analysts, including Solomon Lartey and Reginald Young Jr., spent hours each day reconstructing documents that Trump had ripped apart. Lartey told Politico that he and his colleagues had initially tried to educate the president about the records preservation requirements but that Trump continued to tear up documents.
In February 2022, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reported in her book "Confidence Man" that White House residence staff had periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging toilets in the White House and believed Trump had flushed documents. Haberman described the practice as "an extension of Trump's term-long habit of ripping up documents that were supposed to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act." Haberman subsequently shared photographs with Axios that appeared to show a White House toilet with torn paper in it. Trump denied the claim, calling it "categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book."
In January 2022, the National Archives and Records Administration confirmed that it had retrieved 15 boxes of presidential records from Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, materials that should have been turned over to the Archives when Trump left office on January 20, 2021. NARA stated that some of the recovered documents had been torn up and taped back together by records staff. NARA also reported that some records it expected to receive were not included in the 15 boxes and remained unaccounted for.
The retrieval of the 15 boxes triggered a referral from NARA to the Department of Justice, which led to the FBI's August 8, 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago and the subsequent federal indictment related to the retention of classified documents. The classified documents case is addressed in separate entries.
Primary Sources
1. Politico: "Meet the Guys Who Tape Trump's Papers Back Together," June 10, 2018
2. National Archives and Records Administration, statement confirming retrieval of 15 boxes of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago, January 2022
3. 44 U.S.C. Sections 2201-2209, Presidential Records Act
4. Maggie Haberman, "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America" (2022), reporting on flushed documents
Corroborating Sources
1. Axios: "Exclusive: See the Trump toilet photos that he denies ever existed," August 8, 2022
2. NBC News: "Trump denies he flushed records down White House toilet," February 2022
3. The Hill: "Haberman shares photos of Trump-era White House toilet clogged with wads of paper," August 2022
4. The Conversation: "New photos suggest how Trump, flush with power, may have sent official documents down the toilet," August 2022
Counterarguments and Context
Trump denied flushing documents and called the reporting fabricated. His representatives argued that the tear-up habit was overstated and that any documents that were torn were reassembled and preserved by staff, meaning the records were not actually lost. On the 15 boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, Trump's legal team initially stated that the records had been packed hastily during the transition and that their presence at Mar-a-Lago was inadvertent rather than deliberate. Trump later argued that he had the authority to retain presidential records under the Presidential Records Act and that the documents were his personal property. Legal scholars widely rejected that interpretation, noting that the PRA vests ownership of presidential records in the United States government, not the individual president.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the key facts are established through primary documentation: the National Archives' confirmation of the 15-box retrieval, the on-the-record accounts of White House records staff who taped documents back together, and the photographic evidence published in connection with Haberman's reporting. The Presidential Records Act is a federal statute, and the failure to comply with its requirements is a matter of public record. This entry covers the records destruction and mishandling pattern. The separate question of classified document retention is documented in other entries.